We Need Cheaper Stuff In Iceland, Just Not This Stuff

A meditation on Temu, pig insemination, and broken promises

Last week, Facebook decided I needed to see an advertisement for a plastic pig insemination device. Not a high-quality veterinary tool, mind you, but what appeared to be a janky knockoff that probably breaks after one use if it works at all. I have the good folks at Temu to thank for this helpful advertisement. The Chinese online marketplace recently launched in Iceland, promising everything we could ever want at prices too good to be true.

I stared at that pig insemination ad longer than any reasonable person should, not because I have sudden agricultural aspirations, but because I got lost in unsettling visions about where unrestrained capitalism has led us. This is apparently the peak we were aiming for. A world where algorithms think I need cut-rate livestock breeding equipment delivered to my Reykjavík doorstep.

When I explain Iceland to my American friends, I tell them the things you want are cheap in the USA but the things you need are expensive. Here in Iceland, it’s the opposite. The things you need are reasonably priced, but the things you want cost a fortune. Healthcare won’t bankrupt you, but that impulse purchase definitely will.

I’ve come to believe Iceland’s got the balance right. When necessities are affordable and luxuries expensive, you’re forced to consider what you actually need versus what you merely want. It’s a built-in pause button against mindless consumption, and it ensures that people are treated with dignity in the process. But now Temu has arrived, promising to flood Iceland with the same cheap garbage that’s drowning the rest of the world.

The research on Temu reads like a consumer protection nightmare. South Korean authorities found children’s clothes with phthalate levels 622 times the legal limit. A Nordic study revealed that 71 percent of cheap online purchases violated EU chemical regulations. In Australia, every single toy tested from Temu failed safety standards. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re the business model.

The environmental implications are equally troubling. These aren’t just unsafe products; they’re toxic time bombs. Children’s clothing with extreme phthalate levels doesn’t just harm kids when worn, it leaches chemicals into Iceland’s water systems when washed. This can have long-term impacts on plants, animals, and humans alike. Lead-filled jewellery and cadmium-laced plastic goods can poison soil when they’re inevitably disposed of. The products are deliberately designed to break quickly and be discarded, creating toxic waste that Iceland’s small population was never meant to handle.
“In Australia, every single toy tested from Temu failed safety standards. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re the business model.”

Temu operates by connecting buyers directly to Chinese manufacturers. It is a genuine efficiency, but comes at the cost of cutting out quality control, safety standards, and any pretense of corporate responsibility. The result is a marketplace where you can buy anything imaginable, as long as you don’t mind that it might poison your children, explode in your hands, or simply be completely different from what was advertised.

This is a race to the bottom. It’s a race where the primary driver isn’t innovation, quality, or even basic safety. It’s the relentless pursuit of the lowest possible price. And somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves this is progress.

Capitalism should not be a dirty word. It should drive competition to create better products, more efficiently, benefiting everyone. Instead, we’ve arrived at a place where the winning strategy is to manufacture garbage in exploitative conditions, ship it around the world burning fossil fuels, and market it to people who don’t really need it through surveillance-driven algorithms.

The pig insemination device is the perfect metaphor. It’s a product that 99.999 percent of Temu’s customers will never need, probably doesn’t work as advertised, and was manufactured under conditions we’d rather not think about. Yet there it was in my feed, because some algorithm decided throwing everything at the wall was more profitable than offering anything of value.

Yes, Iceland is very expensive. Yes, it’s legitimately difficult to afford things here sometimes. But Iceland’s high cost of living comes with trade-offs that actually work. The standard of living is relatively quite high. Iceland needs more affordable options, but flooding the market with dangerous junk isn’t how we get there.

Why buy quality local products when you can get something that looks similar for a tenth the price? Never mind that it won’t last, might be dangerous, and supports labour practices that would be illegal here. The algorithm says it’s a deal.

The most insidious part isn’t just the low quality. It’s the normalisation of deception. Temu’s model thrives on products that aren’t what they claim to be. Nail glue that gives children third-degree burns. Electronics that don’t meet basic safety standards. Cosmetics containing banned chemicals. We’re training an entire generation to accept being lied to, as long as the price is right.

When you, dear reader, inevitably get your own targeted Temu ads — and you will — you have a choice that is yours to make. You can embrace a market flooded with disposable products that break, disappoint, and slowly erode the type of society we want to live in. Or, you can choose to believe in something better, like a well-made pig insemination device made to respect the dignity of workers and the environment (and the pigs).

I know which I will choose. Even if it costs more.