The electric toaster is the canonical Reasonable Good. It’s a required small appliance for any modern kitchen, and there are so many different makes and models all clamoring for your attention. This one’s transparent! This one prints on your toast! And yet, what do 99% of people who use a kitchen toaster want it to do? Toast bread. And bagels. Not cost too much. Not set the kitchen on fire. And that’s about it.

In fact, the very first post I made to Reasonable Goods was for a toaster. Our business cards say “It shouldn’t take all day to buy a toaster”. This is exactly the kind of product that Reasonable Goods was made for.

So when I was doing the research on the Reasonable Toaster, I did what any reasonable person would do if they were actually shopping for a toaster. I went to consumersearch.com and consumerreports.org, and I chose what I would have bought: the best toaster for the cheapest price, which happened to be a CR Best Buy–always a good sign if CR thinks the product is in a sweet spot of price/quality too. I checked around the web for negative reviews, made sure it was available on Amazon, and I posted it. “It makes toast, two pieces at a time.”

Well, now it’s been exactly one year since I made that first post. We’ve made 50-odd recommendations since then, and although I’m not as regular at posting new content as I should be, overall I’m proud of the values that Reasonable Goods stands for and the progress we’ve made.

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Saul :: Jun.24.2008 :: Metareasonable :: 2 Comments »