this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Buy it for Life

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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:

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

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Is BIFL Still Possible Today? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 5 hours ago by rosahaj@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
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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)

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[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 20 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

To a large extent I tend to think the same way I was taught with cars, simple is sturdy. Skip the fancy features and WiFi widgets and you'll replace things a lot less often. It's not always practical, but I'm willing to bet my cast iron cookware is going to be in roughly the same shape far longer than some stamped sheet metal with anti stick coating and a glass lid.

[–] rosahaj@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

yeah, i absolutely agree. I tend to want very little, which helps me to not have to be buying things too often, especially since I go for things that are simple enough to serve some function without much else. Does 'simple' stuff that is made today have a similar quality to things that have proven their durability over years?

[–] ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com 3 points 2 hours ago

I guess that's hard to say without the benefit of time behind it. Part of why you see some brands show up over and over though is that they have the history to back up the claims and plenty often those places are not going to risk that reputation of reliability to cheap out on the quality now.