This site really has it all. Somebody took a whole lot of know-how about window blinds, organized it, published it online, _and_ they found a way to make some money to sustain it, without being obnoxious or burying the information in toxic SEO sludge. It's like the sheldonbrown.com of window blinds.
It covers pillows, mattresses, etc. Labor love, makes no direct money, committed to and open about how frequent manipulation is in the industry. I followed its recommendations ~1.5 years ago when furnishing a new house and was very happy with the results fitting out 3 bedrooms.
Big Q: why is this still a niche situation? Why do only a few sites have this trait? I think it has to do with culture, habits, and laws for each language & culture. Does it vary by language or region? Are some industries more manipulable than others?
Similar: amazon somehow gets away with defaulting their search result page to "Featured" which means "people pay us to lie to you". They still do provide the option to sort by "best selling" which at least theoretically is better. I'd expect a mature citizenry to rebel and force them to have a better default, or at least let you configure your default.
I'm very interested in characterizing variation on these axes across the world and time. Is it really zero sum and always identical? Or do some habits and traits of a region, language, culture, education system make "better" systems more likely to survive? Can we even actually fairly characterize better systems? It sure feels like we can, but I've also seen people arguing that for example there is no actual difference between rent-seeking and "productive economic activity" on a theoretical level.
But I'm asking why in some markets there are known relatively trustable sites, but not in others. What causes that? I also assume it varies dramatically by culture, language, region, population, period in history. Why? If you deny it varies, what maintains that? There either is a conservation principle (which must have some mechanism for maintenance) or there isn't (in which case variation probably relates to other aspects of reality, and what are they?)
It doesn’t look like it covers what I had to deal with to fix my Hunter Douglas blinds. (The kind you can lift and close by hand and they magically hold their position.)
They have a spring loaded thing called a “motor” and something with two cones and a string between them, called a transmission.
I managed to restring the transmission, but the motor went zing and broke inside when I was trying to wind it up again, so I ended up having to buy a new motor (I think around $30).
It does feel like this site has everything, but I can’t find a solution here to a problem I had with mine either. I figured out a fix on my own and made this video about it, which I’m pleased has helped others fix theirs too.
FWIW in Germany there's a requirement for buildings with automatic shutters to have one designated emergency exit window where the shutters can be operated manually. But fire-fighters shouldn't really have much of a problem if they carry an axe.
I didn't know the name either. Yeah, I'm spoiled by them in Spain (at least in my region, pretty much every residential house or building has them) and I typically sleep too little when I'm elsewhere due to lack of them. No other alternative I have seen comes even close when it comes to making a room really dark at night.
I just call someone to fix them, though. It's quite a dark art for those of us who suck at DIY.
I like to fix things rather than throwing them out and am glad I was able to restring a couple of blinds that didn't work in our new house. This site is where I buy.
If only there were similar sites for other home products. Currently on my list is the soap dispenser for the dishwasher which is nearly impossible to tell which part to order (and I don't want to replace a $500 appliance for what should be a $20 piece of plastic).
I wish I knew a site like this on every subject.
This page is a work of art, god damn it https://fixmyblinds.com/pages/troubleshooter