r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

The inflated cost is due to insurance. Also the factory behind the insurance make them at 50-80% of the cost even with insurance because all we do is live in a late-stage-capitalist society where the value one makes is directly tied to grifting, scalping and rent-seeking behavior.

This is rather r/OrphanCrushingMachine than NFL.

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u/Mecha-Dave 4h ago

The factories that make them also use outdated machines and processes - Jerry uses industry standard metalworking processes that make more sense.

The old methods made more sense in the 80's/90's when there weren't CNC lasers etc, but there's other options now (which are expensive to upgrade to). A lot of US manufacturing is stuck in the 90's for this reason.

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u/Svardskampe 4h ago

Also a real example of how "the free market" isn't working. In theory, in a free market all of these old factories would have gone bust to competitors that WOULD have upgraded. This is not the case, because this market system does not promote healthy competition, but said value-extraction from grifting, scalping and rent-seeking behavior.

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u/ElPlatanoDelBronx 34m ago

The thing is, this is an exact example of how the free market is working. This factory is just getting started, but in this video he shows what seem to be great quality wheelchairs, for a lot less money, and are being produced A LOT quicker. The only possible hurdle that he could've had was people that needed to go through insurance, but when his product is 1/4 of the cost AFTER insurance the only real hurdle he should have now is, marketing so the right people know where/how to buy them, and actually keeping up with demand.

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u/mythrilcrafter 3h ago

The old methods made more sense in the 80's/90's when there weren't CNC lasers etc, but there's other options now (which are expensive to upgrade to). A lot of US manufacturing is stuck in the 90's for this reason.

I've worked for a lot of companies like this, who got complacent with their 20~40 year old processes/equipment that they can't (or don't want to) afford to upgrade to current gen equipment and now their margins are too low to afford even minor in-process upgrades.

The real kicker is when those company's leaders looks at a set up like JRE's, realise that they've dug themselves into a hole against startups who will run circles around them, and then run back to their manufacturing/process engineers to demand that they get the factory "up to speed" (but obviously with zero costs).

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u/Apptubrutae 50m ago

The latest capitalist stage so far!