What you said about China not caring about quality is true, to an extent. The places that get contracted by overseas companies looking to save money, they do not care because they have no reason to care.
The same American company could have found a Chinese factory that made good steel (or whatever) and demanded (with proper follow-up) the same quality as made in America. This all could be done, the logistics of it, importing the goods, hiring a foreign relations person(s), buying the exact same quality of products, ensuring the Chinese factory is making the same quality of products that you are known for, it could all still happen AND save the American company money simply because the Chinese factory doesn't have to recycle waste, spend money on safety equipment, spend money on keeping up to date certifications with environmental protection agencies or safety standards agencies, they don't have to pay into workers benefits programs... it's cheaper. The exact same quality of products can be made and imported cheaper...
But it's not just the Chinese who do not care. It's us, too. We don't care enough to force a change. We just accept that made in China means it's inferior, and we just accept a larger and larger percentage of products to be of lower quality under the guise of saving money.
In this day and age, I think that the quality of products is stabilizing due to the access to information. You can slander/bash a company online and cost it millions of dollars in damages to its reputation. So companies are a little more accountable for their products, because word travels fast. If you get a poor quality product and have to deal with poor support for that product, you are going to raise hell (not unlike ranting on public forums) about it. You will literally "warn" twice as many people NOT to shop somewhere or buy something due to a bad experience, than you will tell about a good experience. Bad news spreads faster than praise. And it's harder to erase from your reputation.
We just haven't been raising enough stink to initiate change. Sure, some individual companies get called out for the lack of quality in their products, and they either change, or fail. But it's just the individual companies, the rest continue until they get caught. And we allow it. So it's going to continue.
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