5 ms·

toaster oven != toaster

by arbitrage 11y ago

DiabloD3 11y ago
toaster oven also != oven. That whole story was very confusing.
- at-fates-hands 11y ago
  The point of the story is back in the day, things were built to last a lifetime. These days, EVERYTHING you buy is disposable and not expected to last very long.
  - sageikosa 11y ago
    Pretty much that. The toaster looks retro, but only because it was built before that type of product hit commodity market saturation and manufacturers realized that cheap meant both better sales (and margins) and a built-in time lagged replacement market. The toaster-oven, with its newer features, had not the staying power.
  - jimmaswell 11y ago
    I've read that this is more due to increased complexity and smaller parts. Maybe it's both that as well as companies wanting to make money off repairs/replacements as implied.
    - sageikosa 11y ago
      I am not sure that toasting technology has gotten orders of magnitude "better". Energy in toast out. I also don't think it was necessarily a conscious decision to make disposable toasters (or cell-phones or effectively computers), just that a market segment opened up and overtook others. We might blame consumers, but we can only blame them in aggregate for incenting a trend to continue by buying into it.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  I have a toaster oven that is 15 years old, and it is still used regularly. It is, by far, the most reliable electric appliance I have ever had, followed by the rice cooker/steamer pot. Even the slow-cookers have had broken oval-shaped lids that turned out to be practically irreplaceable. You can get replacement lids for a round slow cooker very easily, but those ellipses are all built with slightly different sizes and eccentricities, and you can only get replacement crocks and lids that fit well directly from the original manufacturer, who will either gouge you on the price, or inform you that they recently discontinued that size, and they are no longer available at any price. As a result, I tried to propose a "no more oval slow cookers" rule, but that was vetoed by the spouse. The greatest obstacle to repairing seems to be the availability of replacement parts that fit. Most of the time, getting just one critical repair part costs 50% or more of the cost of just replacing the entire thing. We could make everything more repairable if only we have more accepted standards for COTS parts. It is very much like the difference between the old Apple 30-pin connector and USB connectors. Those 30-pin things break very often, and are relatively expensive to continually replace. In contrast, I have never paid extra for a USB charger/connector cable, and none of them have yet become non-functional. So I have quite a few male-type-A to male-micro-B cables, and thanks to the standard, every non-Apple device in my home can share those cables. The Apple devices are split between 30-pin and Lightning, which are always in short supply. Again, I tried to propose a "no crappy, expensive, everbreaking, proprietary connectors" rule, but it was vetoed by the spouse. If you want repairability, you're going to at least need some standards for dimensions and form factors. And you'll probably also need some sort of patent licensing reform, such that the repair parts for a retail product protected by patents may be manufactured and sold using a standardized license. So at some point, preferably sooner rather than later, we're going to need to settle on some standardized monolithic smartphone dimensions, like large: 150x75x12mm, medium: 130x65x12mm, small: 110x55x15mm, and tiny: 90x45x18mm. It doesn't really help me, the consumer, to have 100 slightly different options for phone dimensions when I go looking for a 3rd party protective case, or for shirts with the right pocket size. And it certainly doesn't help when the only differences between two different replacement batteries are 0.2 mm of length, and the contacts shifted 0.1 mm to one side, and then both cost $5 more because of it.
sageikosa 11y ago
We only really intended to make toast. So yes. I cannot heat up bagel-bites in there. Nor can I download apps.

toaster oven != toaster

DiabloD3 11y ago

toaster oven also != oven. That whole story was very confusing.

at-fates-hands 11y ago
The point of the story is back in the day, things were built to last a lifetime. These days, EVERYTHING you buy is disposable and not expected to last very long.
- sageikosa 11y ago
  Pretty much that. The toaster looks retro, but only because it was built before that type of product hit commodity market saturation and manufacturers realized that cheap meant both better sales (and margins) and a built-in time lagged replacement market. The toaster-oven, with its newer features, had not the staying power.
- jimmaswell 11y ago
  I've read that this is more due to increased complexity and smaller parts. Maybe it's both that as well as companies wanting to make money off repairs/replacements as implied.
  - sageikosa 11y ago
    I am not sure that toasting technology has gotten orders of magnitude "better". Energy in toast out. I also don't think it was necessarily a conscious decision to make disposable toasters (or cell-phones or effectively computers), just that a market segment opened up and overtook others. We might blame consumers, but we can only blame them in aggregate for incenting a trend to continue by buying into it.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I have a toaster oven that is 15 years old, and it is still used regularly. It is, by far, the most reliable electric appliance I have ever had, followed by the rice cooker/steamer pot. Even the slow-cookers have had broken oval-shaped lids that turned out to be practically irreplaceable. You can get replacement lids for a round slow cooker very easily, but those ellipses are all built with slightly different sizes and eccentricities, and you can only get replacement crocks and lids that fit well directly from the original manufacturer, who will either gouge you on the price, or inform you that they recently discontinued that size, and they are no longer available at any price. As a result, I tried to propose a "no more oval slow cookers" rule, but that was vetoed by the spouse. The greatest obstacle to repairing seems to be the availability of replacement parts that fit. Most of the time, getting just one critical repair part costs 50% or more of the cost of just replacing the entire thing. We could make everything more repairable if only we have more accepted standards for COTS parts. It is very much like the difference between the old Apple 30-pin connector and USB connectors. Those 30-pin things break very often, and are relatively expensive to continually replace. In contrast, I have never paid extra for a USB charger/connector cable, and none of them have yet become non-functional. So I have quite a few male-type-A to male-micro-B cables, and thanks to the standard, every non-Apple device in my home can share those cables. The Apple devices are split between 30-pin and Lightning, which are always in short supply. Again, I tried to propose a "no crappy, expensive, everbreaking, proprietary connectors" rule, but it was vetoed by the spouse. If you want repairability, you're going to at least need some standards for dimensions and form factors. And you'll probably also need some sort of patent licensing reform, such that the repair parts for a retail product protected by patents may be manufactured and sold using a standardized license. So at some point, preferably sooner rather than later, we're going to need to settle on some standardized monolithic smartphone dimensions, like large: 150x75x12mm, medium: 130x65x12mm, small: 110x55x15mm, and tiny: 90x45x18mm. It doesn't really help me, the consumer, to have 100 slightly different options for phone dimensions when I go looking for a 3rd party protective case, or for shirts with the right pocket size. And it certainly doesn't help when the only differences between two different replacement batteries are 0.2 mm of length, and the contacts shifted 0.1 mm to one side, and then both cost $5 more because of it.

sageikosa 11y ago

We only really intended to make toast. So yes. I cannot heat up bagel-bites in there. Nor can I download apps.