With IKEA, at least I, don't value my efforts, but the savings compared to having to pay someone for a perceived(!) zero-skill job, while still getting the same product.<p>For me it's the over-embellishment of the general trend of transitioning things over from the production and retail to the consumer, charging only marginally less to beat the competition, while reaping in the profit, while marketing the whole thing as <i>empowerment</i>.<p>The build and material quality of an IKEA furniture is almost never anywhere near a well made furniture, it's only big plus is in being affordable due to economies of scale and low transport and storage costs.<p>Recently IKEA seems to get just outright greedy. Their material quality and thickness went from solid to barely tolerable in the last 10 years. For me they are at a borderline point of becoming disposable furniture, where it makes no sense to disassemble to move furniture even in your own house due to the one-time only quality of the connections.<p>Peddling in an urban or more relevantly marketing myth, doesn't even help either:<p>«The key marketing innovation that Dichter’s analysis spurred was not the fresh-egg cake mix, but rather the repositioning of cakes as merely one element of a larger product, an overall creation that entailed a much greater degree of participation and creativity from homemakers and emphasized appearance[!] over taste»[1]<p>It's a trick! You get a less tasty product, a mere product transitioned into an outlet of ego. I you're not only into marketing, but also want a good product it's important to be aware of that deceptive effect.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp</a>