consumers and the machine

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alex rosenberg makes blown glass objects the old-fashioned way, and he made a video comparing his slow, hand-crafted process to industrial mass-production. whereas his objects are hand-crafted and locally made, retailers sell cheap, machine-made glassware at a fraction of the cost of real blown glass. the machines are faster, but not necessarily better. blow-molding leaves lines where the mold comes apart; the glasses are regular and without any striations or bubbles. they also cost about one-tenth as much as hand-made glasses. when he tried to sell painstakingly hand-crafted glassware outside of a boston-area crate and barrel, not only did no one buy his superior pieces, but nobody called the police either. apparently american consumers do not prize handcrafted, locally-made products above chinese crap. would the same be true in other countries?

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