Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose. Who Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?

https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-power-tools-got-worse-on-purpose

by prawn • 2 months ago

176 136 2 months ago

zulux2• 2 months ago

For us US folks, Amazon.jp will send you the unobtanium Makita tools you know you want.... like the Makita battery-operated microwave.

Shout out to TTI for keeping Ryobi cheap, cheerful, and a good value. Not my cup of tea, but their stuff is reasonably fine for the price.

hyperbovine2• 2 months ago

The Makita US product line seems ludicrously big to me. I don’t really get what this article is throwing down when it comes to Makita.

zdragnar• 2 months ago

My (not battery) Makita chainsaw is fantastic, and I have definitely put it through its paces.

deadbabe• 2 months ago

What’s a good one to start with

fatbird4• 2 months ago

Honestly, Ryobi is fine for just about anything a non-professional will need. Buy it, use it until it breaks (if it does), and then consider whether a more expensive one will be necessary.

I started with Ryobi and burned out a drill using it to hog out a 3" mortise with a 2.5" forstner bit (far beyond any reasonable use case for a drill), and upgraded to DeWalt. All of my other Ryobi pieces (circular saw, reciprocating, jigsaw, lights, non-orbital sander) work great, and I've never said to my tool "You'd be able to do this if you were a DeWalt, ya piece of shit!"

The more important thing to do once you start on one brand, and have a bunch of their batteries, is simply wait until the big sales come. All the brands have ridiculous, stock-dumping deals to move volume at least once or twice a year, and that's when it almost becomes buy-one-get-one-free.

Where I avoid the Ryobi brand is in consumables: bits, blades, and such. That's where the cheapness is most obvious. Bits wear more quickly, blades go dull faster. Milwaukee and DeWalt stuff lasts longer, but this is where you go for specialty names like Diablo that are even better. My Ryobi circular saw with Diablo blade is a tank.

evolve2k• 2 months ago

If you can afford to pay that bit more for quality product, from the article plus a few comments here; seems that people really like Makita.

- hasn’t enshitifed

- makes quality tools that last

- much more repairable (saving you even more in the long term)

- single company, not a conglomerate, no weird vc influence.

For most tools you won’t need upgrades, just build out your collection as you go.

wojciii• 2 months ago

I have Makita products .. a lawnmower and a bush clearing tool ..somewhat expensive, but the quality is superb.

happytoexplain• 2 months ago

I had no idea I was missing out on anything - their product line is big even in the US. Our battery tools are 100% Makita (except the lawnmower - I forget what made me decide on EGO, but I've been happy with it).

Anyway, I'm glad to see an article claiming that Makita has still resisted enshittification.

Blackthorn• 2 months ago

If Makita would finally just make a right angle die grinder I would be so happy. It's like the one thing they're missing.

IdiotSavage• 2 months ago

Do they have the Makita coffee maker?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xOEIpbxM4w

zulux2• 2 months ago

Yes, but those are sold in the US market officially. JP has more interesting colors if that's imortant to you.

https://makitatools.com/products/details/DCM501Z

jader2012• 2 months ago

Not sure where “Who Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?” in the title came from.

Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bariumbitmap• 2 months ago

The <title> tag in the HTML has it: <title>Your Power Tools Got Worse On Purpose | Who Really Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?</title>

jader2012• 2 months ago

I wondered if that was it (I’m on my phone).

joe_mamba• 2 months ago

Same with all consumer white goods electronics: microwave ovens, washing machines, refrigerators, toasters, etc. most white label by a few conglomerates with the same Chinese factories.

The "high quality ones" that have their own R&D and manufacturing, are very expensive and out of reach for a lot of people.

Papazsazsa• 2 months ago

The bottom line is that you can also compete by investing in quality.

Arubis2• 2 months ago

I don’t know if it’s by LLM generation or just contemporary style, but I find the style of omitting the subject from sentence after sentence after sentence unreadable. Once is fine. Six in a row is insufferable.

everybodyknows3• 2 months ago

The only full colons are in the headings, and there are no semicolons whatsoever. For embedding a large volume of factual info in prose, these are irreplaceable.

Arubis2• 2 months ago

Yeah.

I think what gets me most about both LLM-generated and LLM-inflected writing is the sheer laziness. You don't even have to hand-edit this stuff! Even feeding your spewed output through a slightly more human-sounding model (Palmyra Writer is halfway decent) is an improvement. Just don't take it straight out of the box.

analog83743• 2 months ago

Tangentially, Arrow T50 stapler used to be a tank but now it's wet shit. Apparently they changed to a new factory.

So when your reputation is big you can slack on the product. Or is that naive? Is it the natural progression for all products?

Like in that movie Brasil. The food is awful but the illustration of the food is wonderful.

hyperbovine2• 2 months ago

Old ones sell on eBay for not a lot.

analog83743• 2 months ago

I'm looking at some modern ones. Bostitch or whatever.

sitkack5• 2 months ago

I have had two die at under 20k staples. 4 boxes.

The problem is MBAs see an unpriced asset of the commons and burn it down to get temporarily, one time ahead.

jmclnx• 2 months ago

Good example of what Private Equity did and doing to many industries. I also notice once a PE Firm takes over a Company, kiss quality good bye.

They mentioned Eye Wear is next, I think the author can guess where that is going. No reason to doubt the same will happen to that industry too.

abfan1127• 2 months ago

seems like a good business model to watch where PE is moving in. Start investing in quality designs while PE drives quality down, then sweep in and be the "quality amongst trash" brand.

senordevnyc2• 2 months ago

I feel the same, but I do wonder sometimes if that’s true. Are there PE firms out there quietly operating great businesses that they’ve acquired? If not, why not? Surely in the long run that’s a better ROI, and private capital should be able to take a longer view, right?

randcraw• 2 months ago

Surely in the long run…

And that's the rub. PE is all about short term ROI at any price. Their business model doesn't take product superiority or brand loyalty into account. If a widget can be made cheaper, you do it, damn the collateral damage.

infecto7• 2 months ago

For every one public headline failure there are hundreds of profitable executions that never get mentioned.

fatbird4• 2 months ago

The longer term of continuing to buy businesses, load them with debt, strip them of value, and move on to the next, promises much better ROI than focussing on a single business.

ike2792• 2 months ago

I think he means "eyeware is next" in the sense that it's the industry he'll be covering next. Pretty much every brand and every layer of the eyewear industry has been owned by Luxxotica for a long time.

NetMageSCW2• 2 months ago

It seems like not my preferred Serengeti or my recent work gift of Maui Jim.

flanked-evergl2• 2 months ago

I recently decided I will go for the cheap Chinese store brand power tools for most things. It's about 1/5 to 1/3 the price of Ryobi, gets really good reviews, have been sold for more than 10 years now with the same batteries, and comes with a 5 year warranty which is 2 years more than ryobi. It's maybe not going to last 10 years, but at 1/5 the price it does not have to.

sedawkgrep• 2 months ago

I think the rule of thumb for non-professionals is:

Buy cheap and if you use it enough that it breaks, buy expensive the second time.

jeffbee• 2 months ago

By following this rule you could easily end up with a tool that lasts forever but strips out all your screw heads.

bluGill4• 2 months ago

All too often I've seen amateurs do this and thing think "don't blame the tool, I must be bad", when it really is the tool! A good craftsman never blames his tools is a reflection on the types of tool a craftsman has, not just the skill they have.

fatbird4• 2 months ago

Perfect. The dirty little secret of this strategy is that most people's uses just aren't that demanding, so the cheap stuff is more than sufficient. Additionally, breaking a cheap tool is a great indicator of where your real needs for quality lie, which is rarely where you think it will be.

delichon• 2 months ago

Ryobi handles DIY at Home Depot. Milwaukee handles pros. The two brands don't eat each other. They serve different people at different price points with different expectations

So market fit is driving both worse and better products at the same time. Cheap DIYers like me are buying the cheapest stuff we can find, and complaining that it's as cheap as its price. My neighbor the contractor buys the expensive stuff and finds that the quality at least somewhat reflects that.

Worse on purpose is my fault, because I'm the guy who bought a cheap Ryobi saw, instead of none at all. Plane flights are worse because I'm the guy who buys the cheapest ticket and tolerates the resulting discomforts, instead of staying home. You can see that through the lens of greed and exploitation, or as just a market evolving to supply consumer demand.

jlglover• 2 months ago

Ryobi make mostly good tools though. The results produced by most Ryobi users, myself included, are limited by user skill not tool quality.

arka2147483647• 2 months ago

If you are a DIY, you might use a tool once a week, or once a year. A pro might use a tool everyday, all day.

A different durability requirement.

A Ryobi is not bad, if it fills your needs, but might not be enough for heavy use.

bluGill4• 2 months ago

There has generally been a grade below Ryobi that is junk. Been that way for decades before Ryobi even existed. Ryobi isn't the best quality, but it is generally good enough and cheaper.

0xbadcafebee2• 2 months ago

Their tools work, but that's different from being good, in comparison to others. They feel and sound terrible and don't perform well at all. If you buy any other brand than Ryobi, you will immediately go "oh, this is clearly better". It's like they designed Ryobi to be as bad as possible without being defective, so that you can't complain about it, but have a great reason to buy Ridgid or Milwaukee.

silisili• 2 months ago

Great tools really. I wish they'd bite the bullet and change the battery. Make adapters or have a trade in program. I know that's their schtick, but it's time.

jszymborski• 2 months ago

What are my options if I'm one of the unwashed massed that aren't able to afford anything but Ryobi/Spirit (RIP)?

What if I'm a professional who needs to use Milwuake/American Airlines if I plan to get my work done?

These feel like choices in the same way you can choose to pay your extortion fee to the mob or choose to pay your taxes.

sokoloff• 2 months ago

I own some Ryobi and Harbor Freight tools as well as some Milwaukee and SnapOn.

I don’t see it as a problem that tools of different quality, specifications, and price are available in the market.

I wouldn’t want there to be only select 80% ground beef nor only A5 Wagyu beef for sale. Both have their place.

jrajav• 2 months ago

Who's breaking down your door with muscle to make you pay for Ryobi?

legitster2• 2 months ago

I don't think there's anything to apologize for.

Buying a professional tool with tens of thousands of hours of potential runtime and 1000lb+ of torque is wasteful.

A Ryobi tool will realistically last for the many decades you need it for and do everything you ask of it.

Lower price points doesn't just mean something is junk. It can also be engineering efficiency.

nubinetwork• 2 months ago

A Ryobi tool will realistically last for the many decades you need it for and do everything you ask of it

Until you buy one of their lawn mowers and the SLA batteries die after a year...

dfxm12• 2 months ago

What are the price points though? Maybe I lucked into a sale, but when I was looking at drills, all the prices were similar. Maybe Bosch was the (expensive) outlier...

massysett• 2 months ago

As the saying goes, anyone can build a bridge that lasts forever. It takes an engineer to build one that lasts fifty years.

RobotToaster2• 2 months ago

Are new ryobi batteries still compatible with all their old tools? I remember it used to be a big selling point that that they never changed their battery system.

Swizec• 2 months ago

I love my Ryobi drill. Bought a set ~10 years ago and it’s still going strong. I charge the battery once every 3 to 4 years. Used it to assemble a bunch of furniture just this weekend. Some of the screw heads are getting a little worn from me being an idiot, but so far haven’t had to replace anything and never needed any more parts than came with the initial beginner set (1 hand drill for screwing, 1 strong drill for drilling, 2 boxes of screw and drill attachments)

A more expensive “proper” set would be completely wasted on me.

mghackerlady2• 2 months ago

Snap-on stays winning

infecto7• 2 months ago

Snap-on is one of the worst value buys out there. Even for professional mechanics.

WillAdams2• 2 months ago

The only Snap-on tools I have, I picked up off the side of the road, except for a ratchet which my father somehow brought home from Vietnam --- his comment on the brand?

It's pretty easy to get the about the same quality, but it's hard to pay more.

Just figure out their OEM and buy a Williams brand screwdriver for example.

That said, for a professional mechanic, there's a lot of value in buying a tool which one can get warrantied the next time the tool truck makes its rounds.

mghackerlady2• 2 months ago

I've never had problems, my father has never had problems, and neither of us have found the price unreasonable for the quality. He does mechanic and electronics work (He works at a motorcycle shop, helps out in the back frequently despite being a glorified secretary) and used to install remote starts. I just think the screwdrivers are nice, use them for electronics repair

jcattle• 2 months ago

The pattern
This isn't a tools story.
The names change. The industries change. The strategy doesn’t.

The pattern

This isn't an insightful blog.

The names change. The topics change. The slop doesn’t.

awkwardleon• 2 months ago

FWIW these worseonpurpose articles have been popping up regularly, consistently accused of being slop, and the purported author has been called out as a Palantir AI shill. e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47779481

relaxing3• 2 months ago

What’s Palantir’s angle on this?

If that’s what it take to draw attention to enshittification then, as the meme says, let them fight.

0xbadcafebee2• 2 months ago

I think most pros agree that Klein tools have fallen off. And conspicuously missing on the list is Wiha and Wera.

Wiha is a family-owned private company in Germany. Relies on self-funding and conservative growth using long-standing relationships with German banks rather than private equity. They manufacture in Germany, Vietnam, Switzerland, and a tiny plant in the US. Well known by electricians. Much better warranty.

Wera is also privately owned, by Bitburger Holding. They avoid debt financing and focus on high-volume production and advertising. Almost all of their manufacturing has left Germany, and is now Czech Republic and Thailand. Well known by auto mechanics. Limited warranty.

FuriouslyAdrift• 2 months ago

For power tools, there's also Festool

tstrimple• 2 months ago

Festool is on the expensive side and designed for professional use to justify the investment. I had disposable income and hate sanding, so I splurged on the festool sander and dust extractor. Night and day difference from my dewalt sander and trying to follow it with a dust vac. I don't use it often. But I'm more likely to start a project that needs it knowing it's not going to make my hand numb and clog the air with tons of particles.

The other Festool product I picked up is their track saw. Couldn't be happier with the results and the products are really well designed from an ergo/UX standpoint. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you could get just as good of results from a track saw at half the price as long as you use a great blade on it. I like them because they make working much more pleasant than my experience with some other tool brands.

Most of the rest of my tools are Dewalt. I settled on them as they have some of the best "prosumer" power tools in woodworking. Their job site table saw and their planer are some of the best available at their price point. Though I'm regretting buying into the battery system. I've seen times where my Dewalt impact couldn't deal with car bolts that a similar Milwaukee zipped right off. Works fine for woodworking though. I've largely replaced my Dewalt battery operated lawn tools with Ego.

m463• 2 months ago

I love love love wera tools

This is my favorite computer stuff screwdriver:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001552GH4

(just buy it)

legitster2• 2 months ago

The big thing that happened to power tools was Lithium-Ion batteries. All of these companies competed when they were still corded electric tools. You could just make a really good drill or saw or router.

Interchangeable batteries got really good and made every set of tools a platform. More importantly, there are only a handful of sources to get batteries from. For all these companies to differentiate and compete they needed to insert their products into wide lines of platforms.

bluGill4• 2 months ago

The larger factor here is batteries are expensive enough that you don't want to mix and match. There is no reason your corded drill and saw need to be the same brand so you can choose whatever. However if your cordless drill and saw take the battery that means you don't have to buy as many batteries (or alternatively when your drill battery goes to the charger you take the saw battery instead of being unable to drill any holes).

Though people are starting to figure out that there are only a couple different batteries and so a cheap adapter means you don't need to buy all the same anymore.

syntheticnature• 2 months ago

This is why I evaluate if a tool type needs to be cordless when buying. Drills, impact drivers? You want cordless, or to have the option. For a circular saw being used by a homeowner for most DIY purposes, it's worth any arrangement issues to have corded. The cordless ones tend to take less common blade sizes and eat batteries even with the provided extra-lightweight blades.

fckgw• 2 months ago

Yeah if you look at the power tool industry as a whole, over the last 20 years has seen massive improvements in quality across the board.

Cordless tools were a niche product, they could barely run an hour and they didn't have 1/10th the power a corded tool does. Things like cordless angle grinders didn't even exist because there was no way to get the required power to drive them.

You also have the advent of brushless tools recently which drive even more power to cordless tools. Smaller, lighter, more power and longer runtime. You put a cheap 18v Ryobi driver against an all metal housing Craftsman corded from the 80s, that cheap plastic Ryobi will outclass that Craftsman every time.

Some brands have risen and fallen. What's happened to Porter Cable is a shame. But conversely, how completely competitive a brand like Ryobi has gotten is also a near miracle. It's a great time for power tools!

xethos• 2 months ago

didn't have 1/10th the power a corded tool does

What boggles the mind is that, at this point, corded gets dunked on by battery-run tools in power output. Corded is limited to the 1500W one can safely pull fromn the wall, but cordless can have higher output. Normally one might assume it'd be a distinction without a difference, but things like table or chop saws can be hungry.

DeathArrow• 2 months ago

These companies prove the same thing from the opposite direction. You don't have to get acquired. You don't have to take the PE money. You can just keep making good products and telling everyone else to go to hell. It's harder, and it's slower, and the growth chart won't impress a Wall Street analyst. But the tools last. And the brand means something 50 years from now instead of ending up in a clearance bin.

How can we convince business owners to take this path? It seems in a future everything will be owned by a few megacorps and crappyfied.

relaxing3• 2 months ago

Public trials.

analog83743• 2 months ago

FTA : The tool companies that are still good. Klein, Makita, Knipex, Channellock, Hilti, Bosch.

ChrisMarshallNY• 2 months ago

I use Makita.

WFM. YMMV.

amluto• 2 months ago

Sigh, DeWalt. A few years ago, there were (I think) first to market with a cordless electric leaf blower that was competitive with gas for serious use — it had a blower in a backpack, two battery slots, used giant 40V “DeWalt XR” batteries, and could operate at high power and for quite a long time.

It was far from perfect — the backpack was not so comfortable and a bit heavy, and it was expensive. Still, the market was obviously growing and is currently booming, and DeWalt should have been a leader.

Instead they never followed up, and they gave everyone who bought one a giant “screw you” by discontinuing the batteries. And left the market wide open for new players and the big gas landscape tool companies (Stihl, Husqvarna) to step in.

Attention executives: when you lead the market in a growing category, you need to invest in it!

lacewing• 2 months ago

Just for the record, this is a novelty domain with a history of posting AI-generated articles that are clearly designed to get clicks based on nostalgia for how random things "used to be better":

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=worseonpurpose.com

tencentshill• 2 months ago

The author works at Palantir as well. One of the prime offenders for making life and liberty Worse on Purpose.

kogasa240p2• 2 months ago

Kinda baffled why a Palantir goon would make an agitslop article about power tools of all things, but here we are.

jpadkins• 2 months ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed the article felt AI generated.

stephbook2• 2 months ago

Not just AI generated. Completely full of slop. Generations of readers who never knew anything else.

kogasa240p2• 2 months ago

Oh damn good eye.

titanomachy2• 2 months ago

I'm so tired of reading things in this imbecilic ChatGPT voice. I'm going to start flagging the most egregious AI slop, following my interpretation of the guidelines:

If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it

Dang, feel free to let me know if this is an inappropriate use of flagging.

CharlesW• 2 months ago

Tip: Emailing the moderation team at hn@ycombinator.com is more effective (and more welcome, I believe) than invoking @dang in comments. They and the rest of the team are preturnaturally responsive.

titanomachy2• 2 months ago

Thanks, I'll do that.

chadgpt3• 2 months ago

I don't believe submitting AI slop is against the guidelines.

npilk• 2 months ago

Yep, clearly written by AI. Seems like an SEO-type play where they just have AI do deep research and write these reports on as many categories as possible to get traction.

Pretty smart business idea as I imagine people love ragebait about why products aren't as good as they used to be.

quickthrowman• 2 months ago

Milwaukee tools are fine, I’ve got 20+ electricians working for me with Milwaukee tools. Hilti are better, but 2-3x more expensive.

There is a specific Hilti tool that allows concrete anchors to be shot in without powder, which lets us work in occupied spaces during regular hours instead of on double time, it’s $1,000 but pays for itself in a day: https://www.hilti.com/c/CLS_POWER_TOOLS_7125/CLS_DIRECT_FAST...

All power tools anre engineered for the bathtub curve. My guys like Milwaukee because the Makita portaband (metal bandsaw for cutting conduit) has a crappy tensioner and the blade falls off every 10 cuts. I’d rather pay someone not to keep putting a blade back on. I have no special love for Milwaukee, but one of the fundamental electrician power tools being that much more reliable makes buying into the whole line worth it.

It’s not always about the cost of the tool itself, but minimizing downtime when labor costs over $100/hr

Aurornis2• 2 months ago

This article is missing conversation about tools. It’s as if someone prompted ChatGPT to look up business deals for power tool companies and then write a summary with dollar amounts in bold.

There are some exceptions in every product line, but the current crop of power tools are actually pretty good. If you know people in the trades they can tell you which specific products are best in each category because trades people are generally very good at sharing that info on social media with each other.

margalabargala• 2 months ago

It’s as if someone prompted ChatGPT

Yes it is. I think you're on to something here.

Starman_Jones• 2 months ago

Way back when, Black & Decker tried to make a push with a professional line of high-quality tools, but nobody was buying them because of B&D’s reputation for cheap, low-quality tools. So they had to introduce a whole new brand line with a distinctive yellow paint scheme. Sad to see them repeating the same mistakes.

jcims• 2 months ago

How is this post two hours old and I don't see any references to Project Farm:

https://www.youtube.com/c/projectfarm

One of the best review channels for products in this area. I moved from DeWalt to Milwaukee for most of my daily drivers about six years ago and have been very happy with them, but for things I will rarely use I tend to go with whatever Harbor Freight is selling. If I break it then it's time to upgrade.

LgWoodenBadger• 2 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/@TorqueTestChannel is another great channel for more tool-specific reviews

isk517• 2 months ago

I feel so lucky to have an arsenal of power tools purchased by my father and grandfather. My 65 year old Black&Decker circular saw still works flawlessly.

RobotToaster2• 2 months ago

The metabo situation is weird, the European company appears to be completely different to the one in the USA>

stephbook2• 2 months ago

Also Bosch is missing.

AndrewKemendo• 2 months ago

But the tools last. And the brand means something 50 years from now instead of ending up in a clearance bin.

Professional builders, craftsman and people who care about their art care about these things.

The people that these companies are selling to (Home Depot “weekend warriors”) do not care about these things which is why they continue to sell despite the alternative existing at a higher price point

And even most entry-level professionals these days are using whatever they can get. I went to a yard sale in Manassas Virginia which is very blue-collar and mostly people working on houses and mowing lawns and things and somebody was selling all of their DeWalt tools because they just bought a new set for cheaper than they could’ve bought a really solid tool.

tennisflyi• 2 months ago

Project Farm often shows middle of the road/big box store tools are often pretty average - what the consumer often wants/needs

oliwarner• 2 months ago

We need: "Investigatory blogging got worse on purpose: using LLMs to confirm popular biases for attention".

I'm not saying this site doesn't speak some truths, but previous on this topic have been so thin, and ignore battery, motor and materials improvements that they totally undercut a real discussion on tool quality and value. If you actually want to talk tools, find a DIY/woodworking group.

maxglute• 2 months ago

Latest Chinese pro/industrial handtools from DongCheng (DCK in west) basically on par with topshelf like Makita in performance and feel for 50% the price. They've closed gap. Probably one of those sectors where legacy brands are on their way out. Tools are getting better and cheaper but obfuscated behind market segmentation in different regions.

Pseudo related is I really enjoy well designed lifestyle DIY tool brands like HOTO, started with slick electric screw drivers for building PCs, and now pretty DIY kits that's nice to look at on small projects.

Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose. Who Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?

Related Stories