Buy it for Life

4636 readers

433 users here now

A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!

Guidelines:

Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!

Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.

Videos links are not allowed as post titles, but you may use them in a text post.

A limited amount of self-promotion is accepted, IF the item you are selling aligns with this criteria:

The item must be made with sustainable or recycled materials.
If electronic in some way, the item must be open-source.
The item must be user-serviceable (if applicable).
You cannot be a large corporation.
The post must be clearly marked with a [Self Promotion] tag in your title.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

115

Is BIFL Still Possible Today? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi there, I came here to the BIFL Lemmy out of suspicion that the reddit posts are just unlabelled marketing, and I was wondering the possibility of sourcing goods that are more to a BIFL standard? In my area, second hand goods tend to be really quite poor in quality (reselling fast fashion) or otherwise not present, and I have not inherited anything that does last. So I would apprecite advice or reccomendations for finding goods at a BIFL standard. I was also wondering if maybe there would be anyone with good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production so that I may be able to tailor what I need without having to buy from the poor selection aforementioned, does anyone know of any of this?

TL:DR I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as 'BIFL' has been enshittified, and would like advice on being able to search for sustainable goods for a local area (not specified because I'm hoping for advice with searching, not exactly for specific reccs)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] BoxOfFeet 4 points 6 hours ago

For certain things, yeah I think so. Good knives, cast iron cookware. Fountain pens yes, as long as spare parts are available. Meze headphones are designed to be completely user serviceable, but that will entirely depend on if they continue to make spare parts.

I would say a majority of modern electronics and appliances are all designed for obsolescence. Born to die. Surprisingly, I have bought things off AliExpress that are more serviceable than most mainstream electronics! Linux-based gaming handhelds that are assembled with screws, no clips or glue. With replaceable components. Headphone amps with socketed op-amps so you can replace or change them at your will.

The real BIFL these days is definitely priced at luxury levels. Speed Queen washers and dryers. Sub-Zero refrigerators. Tudor watches.

With how electronic everything is these days, if you want to BIFL, you better get good at diagnosing and repairing tiny surface mount PCB components. That's where I'm at now, with a lot of my game consoles. I can toss an SSD in my PS2 and play some San Andreas. No discs, no laser issues! But that PS2 still has 24 year old capacitors, and they're probably going to die at some point.

I have no idea regarding locally sourced textile goods, sorry. Hammer Made has great men's shirts, but I don't know anything beyond that.