Mildly Infuriating

Plenty of people have already explained that consumer scales show bullshit. But there's another reason why your weight is not the same as producer's weight.

You see, kilograms are a unit of measure of mass, not weight. Weight is measured in Newtons. And 1kg = 1 * g Newtons. But here's the catch - g is not constant in real life. It changes from 9.7639 to 9.8337 depending on your location. That's almost 1% of variance.

What that means is that if you take your scales and your pasta and go on a worldwide trip, then you will see different weight in different locations.

They all have legally allowed margins of error.they use it to their full advantage.

Record profits is just code for "the successful fleecing of the 99%"... It has a better ring to it.

see, capitalism works!

1. sell 10million packages each with missing 2% of contents.
2. sell those 200000 extra packages with the contens you "saved" (no, not 204000 with again missing 2%, see below why)
3. do not pay taxes on extra packages you sold as you can "proof" you sold all 10million paying those taxes.
4. receive 200000 * price of package as personal taxfree extra income.
5. write that one guy who complained about missing 8grams of pasta a sorry letter
6. complain about time loss and costs writing a single sorry letter and pay paper and stamp out of "marketing" campaigns budget
7. complain about the world not trusting companies
8. complain about people using badly adjusted scales
9. complain about someone selling none-genuine products on market with your logo faked.
10. assume that those packages with missing contents could be just those fake products.

done a full circle.

but... kitchen scales are really bad. most other scales as well. i tried to find (electronic) scales that are actually precise:

for low weights i ended up with a scale with 0.01 gram precison, but it could only measure a bit more than 100grams (and also included a 100gr calibration weight)

for higher weigths i only found a scale for post offices measuring packages. the only thing the vendor "really" promised was that multiple times measuring the same thing would be showing the same weight (nope the best "affordable" scale on the market here did not promise to measure correctly, just to measure over and over the same...)

i guess the options for accurate measuring of more than 100gr are:

• old style mechanical scales daily adjusted
• high priced industry/laboratory scales with warranties

fun fact:

after i bought that 0.01gr precicion scale, amazon showed me small plastic clip bags with green leaf signs on it as "recommended" products for month, while i used the scale to mix just small amounts of 2-component epoxy resin in projects.

Yes, it seems that way because your kitchen scale is faulty and measuring everything a bit on the light side.

This is why in the EU they need to display net weight.

You've bought spaghetti Kelly, not cocaine.