Cookware Got Worse on Purpose: Who Owns Pyrex and All-Clad Now

This website is obviously AI generated down to the "Number Noun, Number Noun" section headers, "authored" by someone with a questionable background. I don't know why HN keeps upvoting articles from it.

Pyrex was one of the great customer betrayals. Corning built the brand to promote a specific blend of glass with it's specific properties. Successfully enough that that blend, borosilcate glass became synonymous with the brand, Pyrex. Breaking this link to ride on the coattails of trust the brand had while selling a different blend with different properties was a dirty move.

An interesting subject is how to differentiate borosilicate glass from tempered glass, It turns out to be surprisingly tricky, at least in a home kitchen setting. You could break it, easy but now you are can't use the dish. Color(blueish vs more clear) turns out to be a unfaithful test. There are ways to check the index of refraction(IOR) with oil, but it turns out the IOR of borosilicate and soda-lime overlap. I suspect the polarized light test to identify tempered glass stress would work, but that requires getting the polorizing filters and knowing what to look for. I sort of wish there was a requirement to stamp the formula right into the glass.

After my AllClad pans have started to get the sharp edges from dishwasher corrosion of the aluminum layer, I've been switching to Hestan Nanobond. It's not exactly nonstick, but the surface is so hard and polished that things don't stick very much and you can use metal implements without scratching the pan.

But I think AllClad has switched to sealed-rims on their pans, thus making them truly dishwasher-safe?

The former Japan license-holder for Pyrex still makes it as Iwaki

Ive been happy with All-Clad, but last ones I bought was horrible quality, this explains much. Brands living off their reputation, but private equity running them into the ground.

I’ve noticed it’s extremely common for things to be advertised as dishwasher safe, but once you open the box, the instructions recommend hand washing.

I’ve started doing a lot more research when buying things because of this. It seems like every pot and pan does this, not just All-Clad.

I’d love to see legislation prohibiting private equity from strip-mining established brands.

Hestan >>>>>

Just get cast iron

I can't tell if this thread is real or not.

But, uh, I have All Clad pots and pans and still like them. The bottoms warped on a couple so I replaced them with other brands.

In general they hold up well when hand-washed.

The handles are terrible though. Maybe it's a UX nudge to always use a pot holder?

While a lot of folks have a negative feelings towards the word "capitalism" in recent years, someone remarked that perhaps we should bring back the word "free enterprise".

As it seems there's to be lots of consolidation, which is kind of antithetical to the free market and competition. If governments (?) better resisted consolidation and conglomerates I think a lot of this enshittification would be slowed down because of actual competition.