Is "thermos" a quality brand? Was it ever?

You already know the answer. It once was a well made brand, and now it is not, but that’s how we like it.

Social security won’t sustain you, so you’d better have a 401k. Everyone’s future is depending on continued shitification and value extraction. Occasionally someone will find a new angle to provide value (like Netflix) but those arcs run right into the ground too.

It was once a quality brand…pretty much an industry standard. But they started trying to cut corners with manufacturing and materials and they have become a pretty sad brand these days. Right now Yeti is one of the top brands. I’ve also always been partial to my Stanley thermos/carafe. I’ve put hot coffee into it and had it still very hot 8 hours later. I’ve put Iced Tea into it and still had ice in it the next day.

Until the glass shatters.

Thermos was a brand for the masses the way I remember it. It kept things at temperature pretty well. In the US thermos is used to describe anything that keeps liquid hot or cold, the same as people say Vaseline for any brand of petroleum jelly or Kleenex for any tissue. I don’t think Thermos was ever an elite or luxury brand.

Not any longer. Quality in that area is Yeti

Thermos used to have the double-walled glass vacuum containers. Those worked beautifully and, because of the glass, didn’t impart funny flavors to your coffee. But they were vulnerable to breakage. Then people started buying cheaper but more durable containers. Thermos containers went down in quality to chase the market down.

The ones I have are both made of metal, with some plastic parts. I do not trust glass, from any brand.
I bought some double walled glass coffee cups some time ago, and they both got destroyed within a week when I accidentally knocked them off the table.

The glass was behind a metal wall @ragingloli. It never came in contact with the beverage.

When I was little, in the early 1970s, you had your lunch box and your thermos, with milk in it. You had one or two thermoses. Now people have ten water bottles per household member – so many water bottles and cups.

@seawulf575 I saw an article that Stanley is lined with lead. The company is aware that consumers are aware now and they are working on new linings. A friend has a Yeti and she said it will keep the drink cold for two days.

@Dutchess_III I believe the Thermos glass liner did come in contact with the beverage.

Another example of the worst attribute of a capitalist nation.
It’s great for small businesses, but eventually greed make people chase ever larger profit margins.
This typically results in “outsourcing” the parts, and eventually labor. Typically resulting in a massive drop in quality.
Then. A even worse, larger and cheaper company buys the brand. Then it slowly dies…

It’s the American dream.

Stanley still makes the tough green can that’ll last you your entire life. There are still companies that make quality products. And just so you know, the high-quality stuff marketed to people willing to pay is the most profitable. By far. The cheap shit has no margin and they have to sell 100X what they do for nice things to make a profit. The consumer consistently chooses the cheap shit so that is what is made. You buy products made in China with slave labor because it saves you money. Truth be told, it costs you in the long run because you don’t buy or demand quality and end up replacing things that you did not have to if you just spent a little more on something that would last. Decades of that behavior has caused a disposable product economy. You green-lighted this behavior. Companies can’t compete with the slave labor generated products you demand so they hand the keys over to those producers. It’s really your fault.

@jca lead is used in the production of all metal vacuum flasks to seal the hole where the vacuum was made. It doesn’t come in contact with the fluid as it’s on the outside.

@Lightlyseared – beat me to it! Those stainless steel double wall containers are made with a little hole in the bottom of the outer layer. They put a bunch in a vacuum chamber then put a blob of solder over the hole. The solder is a lead-tin alloy. Don’t lick the solder blob. It’s under a rubber cover anyway.

My dad carried one to his job at Carbide for years. I don’t think it’s a great brand now.

It always was for me…

@jca2…but when the glass broke it just rattled around behind the wall. It didn’t break and fall in your drink.

Oh, ok, I don’t remember. It was like 50 years ago when I used a thermos. @Dutchess_III

Lol!! Longer than that for me @jca2!

@MrGrimm888 – it’s not greed, per se, but just the model.

For growth, you need investment. Large growth only comes with large investment. No one invests to make the world better. Investors demand returns and start changing things when they don’t get what they want. This gets even crazier when a company goes public – and the CEO is legally obligated to act in the best financial interests of the shareholders, which means constant growth.

The only things that stay good are when humans are willing to sacrifice for the sake of the thing, the customer and their reputation. A small restaurant owner will do this, a small farmer will do this, a freelance web designer will do this, but nothing big ever will. Big is shitty, end of story.

Yep, stockholders don’t care. They just want their gains ($$$).

@Smashley I believe that human greed, is the reason, the model is unsustainable.
Ultimately. The why, isn’t important.
Capitalism, has a predictable, negative outcome, eventually.

As with any system, it has some pros. I don’t want to abandon it completely, but it needs refinement/change.
It should be in some way, that doesn’t reward the type of things we are taking about.

Capitalism is a predictable force. When it is allowed to work against the common good, it is a failure of the technology of government. It is not that capitalism is bad, it’s that our tools for harnessing it have become rusty.

^All systems have loopholes. Or things that can be manipulated.
That’s where greed comes in.
Lawyers, have many roles in law.
Bigger, wealthier corporations, get away with more, because manipulating the system is more profitable than not.

Because the systems to prevent manipulation are failing us. It’s a documented phenomenon that when people think they can get away with things, they do bad things. When government fails to keep up, new angles are exploited by people in the know. Eventually things change but too late to prevent the harm.

I suppose greed is a factor, but I see that more as an immutable human trait: accumulation and self interest. You can argue that it is bad, but to not expect it is naive. The failure is in the system, not in the existence of the greed.

Tomato Tomato.

^^ This is all human nature and not capitalism. People are going to look for an edge. How can the do better. They find a way to do it until they get caught or the rules get changed.
Same thing happens in sports.

Agree – they believe laws are for losers i.e. it’s much easier to win if you don’t follow the rules that everyone else is following.