27 ms·

They Used To Last 50 Years

• joshu 10y ago
  Another reason: some very durable materials are no longer legal. For example, beryllium copper and leaded solder.
  • mschuster91 10y ago
    I don't get why you're being downvoted. Anyone remembers the years after RoHS went into effect and e.g. NVidia's mobile GPUs started failing left and right due to no one having experience with lead-free solder?
    • j3097736 10y ago
      Because most of the failures I see are simply a product of bad design/cost cutting. Otherwise we would have plenty of other devices based on the same technology fail.
• pingec 10y ago
  Something should be said about repairability. Seems like manufacturers are purposely trying to make appliances unrepairable. For example recently a temperature sensor (cost USD 1$) failed in my fridge-freezer in the freezer compartment. Electrolux does not provide a way to replace it nor instructions on locating this faulty sensor so the repairs guy just tells you to replace the appliance [1] because a 1 dollar sensor failed, can you imagine? Shame on them! [1] http://pingec.si/blog/articles/fixing-a-faulty-freezer-sensor/ http://pingec.si/blog/articles/fixing-a-faulty-freezer-senso... On the other hand I have a 30 years old washing machine which is rust-free and it simply just works. I am not sure I would ever want to replace it.
• emodendroket 10y ago
  While planned obsolescence is probably a factor I'd also consider the desire for more complicated features, efficiency requirements, and high (upfront) price sensitivity on the part of consumers. To the last point in particular I think you will find that a refrigerator was way more expensive in real dollars in 1950.
  • orless 10y ago
    I think many people won't mind paying a higher price for a longer-lasting product. But there's just no way to know it will really be longer-lasting.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      If a manufacturer is confident that their product will last, they can convey this to the buyer by providing a really good warranty.
      • toast0 10y ago
        A really long warranty only helps if the company remains solvent. I would be happier with something the manufacturer was confident was serviceable. Control boards that approach the cost of a high end smartphone are unreasonable, but also common.
        • no_wizard 10y ago
          I always had this dream of starting a company where my disruption to whatever industry, say home appliances, or cars, isn't that I'm doing something new, per say, its that I'm engineering everything the company would sell with DIY easy access fixes in mind, and actually publish (and ship with the product) the repair manual so people can just order the parts (with some margin, nothing crazy i'd think) and be on their way. Sell it to the self reliant, tinkers, and generally just people who hate to pay the high cost of repairs on things. I wonder, truly, if this would be successful. I have no way of even wrapping my head around how to get something like that off the ground. I think if someone designed and shipped a car, for instance, that was completely serviceable by the owner and designed with that in mind first and for most, you could easily disrupt the car market for a very broad amount of people today.
          • sokoloff 10y ago
            Many cars are largely DIY-friendly already. I do all of the work on our cars except tires, exhaust, bodywork/paint, and manufacturer recalls. In the last 15 years, I can only recall one time a car went into a shop for a reason other than the above and that was an independent shop where I was too busy to deal with the job. That's across a Mercedes, a Jeep, a Honda CR-V, and Alfa Romeo, and some classic Mustangs. There are a few marques that are DIY-unfriendly (hello, BMW), but most cars can be effectively DIY maintained. A DIY-friendly car would not be as disruptive as perhaps you think.
• tnuc 10y ago
  If only there was a term for this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    From the article: > It’s either incompetence or more likely, planned obsolescence.
• rickdale 10y ago
  Companies have a staff for each area that goes around repairing the appliances and those people get jobs and the companies sell more appliances. I bought a GE refrigerator last year. Just a few weeks after having it, I woke up one morning to the thing not getting cold. GE insisted they come to look at it, while I insisted they replace the refrigerator. Repair guy comes on the first visit 2 weeks later, tries some different parts, tells me, "I'll be back next Friday.", which was 7 days away. He comes back the next Friday and determines the refrigerator is unrepairable. It had heated up and completely warped the inside. The repair guy had to take photos and video for corporate. That means a brand new refrigerator went straight to the dump. It's upsetting. And note how much time it took before this poor guy could get to me. He was booked with appointments. This was a month long fiasco. I had spent time researching and purchasing the refrigerator before hand, which was even more frustrating. During the month without a refrigerator my only option as I saw it was to bite the bullet and buy another refrigerator. That refrigerator has been great, albeit my standards for a 'great' refrigerator have lowered.
• sbierwagen 10y ago
  (2015)
• prodmerc 10y ago
  I've worked on hundreds of domestic appliances. Newer ones from any manufacturer are indeed failing more often, and are designed worse. The only explanation is that this is on purpose - just like cars or laptops or smartphones, they are designed to fail faster so you buy new ones. Planned obsolescence, plain and simple. The best appliances today, by the way, are made by Bosch/Siemens and Miele. None of the other manufacturers come close, period. Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey. Same design, but it seems they use lower quality electronics and metals, as the most common failures are with the motors, control boards and bearings.
  • koolba 10y ago
    > The best appliances today, by the way, are made by Bosch/Siemens and Miele. None of the other manufacturers come close, period. > Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey. What's the price difference for a made in Germany Bosch/Siemens v.s. a wherever-it-comes-from Whirlpool? Does it justify shelling out the extra $$$ for it v.s. the expected life to replace the latter when it dies? (presumably sooner than the German one)
    • prodmerc 10y ago
      The price for Bosch/Siemens made in Germany is about twice as high than the ones made elsewhere. But that's partly because they only make the top end models in Germany, with mid-range models being made in Spain or Poland, and cheaper models in China. They should last longer, be quieter and have all the extra features, but I'm not sure if it's worth double the price. I always use last generation high end stuff (refurb or used), and fix it myself.
      • pcurve 10y ago
        I agree. It would be worth double the price, if they used all different components than the ones used in its cheaper siblings. But if much of the parts are the same inside, where it's manufactured doesn't really matter.
• nickhalfasleep 10y ago
  A coworker was raving about their refrigerator from New Zealand as being against this trend: https://www.fisherpaykel.com/ https://www.fisherpaykel.com/
  • rbg246 10y ago
    I used to sell these about fifteen years ago and maybe they have changed but they were no different than any other fridge brand and their washing machines... they were one of the first brands to have led control panels which used to always break after five years. But that's a while back now.
  • xutopia 10y ago
    I own two fridges, an oven and a dual dishwasher from them. The fridges are beautiful to look at but the pump is rather noisy. The oven is the best oven I've ever had in my life. The dishwasher broke down more times than I care to say and caused water damage in my house. I've had the lot for 4 years now.
  • crb 10y ago
    I'm a New Zealander who has owned Fisher and Paykel appliances, and was interested to see if they were still independent, as they weren't mentioned in this article. Since 2012, they've been 90% owned by Haier, one of the "big four" he lists.
  • chadcmulligan 10y ago
    I'm in Australia and have mostly fisher paykel and that has been my experience - can recommend
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    What's really good about those is the motor. They're one of the first pancake motor users in appliances and because of the extremely short unsupported section of shaft are next to indestructible if not abused. I've seen people scouring dumps for those for some hobby project or other (windmill, hometrainer, electric go-cart...).
  • mrbill 10y ago
• gonzo 10y ago
  Author lives in Hawaii. I lived in Hawaii for 7 years. Everything rusts.
• philipkglass 10y ago
  If these observations are correct, it seems like all the other issues are just fallout from the first, "not enough competition." Because everything else -- the push for higher efficiency, more bells and whistles, a proliferation of models that change all the time, lighter metal parts -- applies to automobiles too, and today's automobiles are significantly more durable and low-maintenance than those of my parents' and grandparents' generations.
• ta4567 10y ago
  I’ve bought and sold refrigerators and freezers from the 1950’s that still work perfectly fine. I’ve come across washers and dryers from the 1960’s and 1970’s that were still working like the day they were made. Isn't there an element of survivorship bias to these statements? What about all the 1950's fridges that didn't last until today?
  • Klathmon 10y ago
    I think survivorship bias could very well be a part of it, but very rarely is there a "root cause" to something like this. I tend to be a more optimistic person (feel free to call it naive!). While i'm sure there are brands/companies out there plotting to make a dishwasher that breaks 6 months outside the warranty, I have a feeling its much more likely that it's due to other reasons. As someone else in this thread brought up, quality costs money. People are getting used to paying less up-front for their appliances, and in order to stay competitive these companies need to also drop their prices, which means cutting corners in some areas. If they make it look nicer "at purchase time" (like with fancy exteriors, easier install due to lighter weight, more features, etc...) and skimp on the reliability, they will sell more now and stay competitive (with a possibly intended, but also possibly unintended side effect of causing more to be sold in the long run due to failures). Elsewhere in this thread, people are comparing prices of 1950's appliances to todays, and I'm noticing that in the 1950's they cost around 4x more than they do today about across the board! That right there could account for a fairly significant amount of the difference in quality.
  • kw71 10y ago
    Fridges have come a long way in efficiency. I cannot believe that operating a fridge from the 80s or before is not a ridiculous waste of money, no matter how inexpensive your electricity is.
  • torgoguys 10y ago
    > Isn't there an element of survivorship bias to these statements? What about all the 1950's fridges that didn't last until today? Right. If fridges made in the 50s routinely lasted 50 years I should have seen lots of 50s style models growing up. I didn't. Anecdotal, so take it FWIW. He may have good points about declining quality, but I suspect it is demonstrably true that such appliances didn't typically last 50 years. In fact, it is the rarity of seeing such old appliances that make people really pay attention when they see one. Perhaps also of interest, Consumer Reports regularly reports that modern cars are much MORE reliable than cars of old. (They have lots of data on the issue.) This despite being much more complicated machines than they used to be. Another anecdote. Watching an 80s TV show with my not-yet-tween daughter, we came upon a part where a character hopped in a car and found it turned over but wouldn't start. My daughter asked me why it wouldn't start. She has to this point in life never seen a car not start! That was a weird thought to me, someone growing up in the 80s. (My daughter has heard of dead batteries possibly being a problem with cars from time to time).
• namenotrequired 10y ago
  Which startups are working on this problem? Just in Amsterdam, I know of two [1], so undoubtly there are more out there? [1] https://www.bundles.nl/ https://www.bundles.nl/ and https://www.peerby.com/ https://www.peerby.com/
  • MrQuincle 10y ago
    I think but owning a washing machine can be indeed a good approach. The other one is knowing which appliances you have and how long they last. With smart power outlets the aggregated data across many households comes available. That means that consumer protection programs get a lot of ammunition to hold manufacturers accoutable.
• trevyn 10y ago
  Everything is getting faster. Just fucking accept it.
• iopuy 10y ago
  I have a theory that this is also being done with cars sold specifically in the United States. I spent some time abroad in South America a few years ago and I'm convinced our crappy cars wouldn't hold up a year driving on the unpaved roads and rocky desert terrain the resident's down there are used to. Meanwhile, my Argentine friend's 1980s Peugeot, missing electric windows and cd player had been on the road there for DECADES. This got me so intersted I looked up the most popular vehicle I saw thinking that would be my next car here. Well guess what? The Toyota Hilux isn't available here. They claim the Tacoma is the same truck just engineered for American emission's standards. I'm not buying it.
  • Klathmon 10y ago
    Well that could be due to the different markets. A US car manufactured to withstand south american unpaved roads would be largely wasted. 99% of people won't ever use them in that manner. So money is spent on things they will use (like infotainment systems and more "creature comfort" stuff). In an area where unpaved roads are more common, the suspension might be beefed up, thicker steel used, an overall hardened vehicle, but the interior will be a shell of what the US car would be.
  • jonknee 10y ago
    > The Toyota Hilux isn't available here. They claim the Tacoma is the same truck just engineered for American emission's standards. I'm not buying it. The Tacoma is a pretty sturdy truck, you see lots of older ones running around along with legions of Taco fans. They aren't available with a diesel engine like the Hilux, but the Hilux diesel wouldn't work in the US because of emissions and not being for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.
• mafribe 10y ago
  Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10440526
• bambax 10y ago
  The only brands I ever buy are Miele and Siemens; they're both German; Miele has always been family owned; not sure about Siemens (huge conglomerate). Miele machines are expensive but indestructible. Siemens ones are very strong and not much dearer than other brands. Are those not available in the US?
  • whatnotests 10y ago
    I've never seen Miele but Siemens is here, though not in the home appliance market.
  • setpatchaddress 10y ago
    Miele is here, but they're known for vacuums and dishwashers, mainly. The Miele laundry appliances have tiny capacities compared to everything else sold in the US. My assumption is that Europeans wash clothes more frequently, in smaller batches. Years ago, I bought a Miele dishwasher with cutlery rack; it was incredibly good. Other people have had mixed experiences. Service is difficult to find for Miele.
  • ianbicking 10y ago
    Miele is available, though not at more commodity stores like Best Buy. We replaced our awful 3-year-old waste of a dishwasher for a Miele and have been happy. In terms of cost, the original (Electrolux?) was like $800 and the Miele was maybe $1100. But the Miele has less capacity and is louder. Which I'm OK with in exchange for reliability and sound construction, but if we hadn't gotten such a lemon before I might have had a harder time justifying it to myself. When my fridge finally dies, I'm sure before its 10th birthday, I'll probably replace it with a Miele.
  • raphman 10y ago
    FWIW, all Siemens appliances are manufactured by Bosch Siemens Haushaltsgeräte (now BSH Hausgeräte)[1]. Siemens sold all of their shares to Bosch in 2014. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te
  • jansan 10y ago
    Miele has a rock solid reputation in Germany when it comes to washing machines. As the old folks say "Miele, Miele, sprach die Tante, die alle Waschmaschinen kannte", which means something like "Miele, Miele, said the aunt, who knew all washing machines". Not sure about other appliances from Miele. My Miele dryer lasted only 10 years (with a broken drum, beyond repair), which is far less than what you would expect from Miele.
• jdonaldson 10y ago
  Look for a brand called "Speed Queen". They generally make commercial washers, but have a few home units they sell as well. They're all built like tanks, and some still have old mechanical controls. I have a mechanical set, and love it. https://youtu.be/O8L9PIjYngk https://youtu.be/O8L9PIjYngk
  • mruniverse 10y ago
    Yep. Bought the washer and dryer and they are nice. Went with the electronic controls though. And also top loading washer to avoid moisture/mold issues if door left closed.
  • ksherlock 10y ago
    I love my speed queen. Made in Wisconsin, I believe.
• Chai-T-Rex 10y ago
  One thing that shouldn't be discounted is survivorship bias. The machines from the 1960s that broke early on aren't around anymore. The only machines from the 1960s that are left are those which last a long time.
  • bbcbasic 10y ago
    That and you definitely wont find anecdotes of appliances that are 2 years old as of today lasting for 50 years. You could say 'tortoises! they don't make them like they used to' for example.
• patrickg_zill 10y ago
  If talking about motors, they used to use copper for the windings. Now they use aluminum wire, which works perfectly fine, until there is a power surge in which case the aluminum overheats and the motor is now dead.
  • oasisbob 10y ago
    Got a source for that? As I understand it, aluminum wound transformers are more reliable than copper under surge conditions because aluminum has a much higher specific heat than copper - providing more of a thermal buffer prior to damage. Motors aren't transformers, but I'm having a hard time seeing how this same effect wouldn't be in play.
    • patrickg_zill 10y ago
      My source for the explanation of motors in household appliances wearing out, is from people who are in the commodity metals recycling industry (i.e. metals like steel/copper/alu sold for scrap and recycled). So it is based on what they are seeing - there might be some bias, as obviously they are only seeing those units that have been sent off for scrap. Aluminum wiring in houses, has some known problems, such as metal fatigue and differences in thermal expansion between copper and aluminum: http://www.alwirerepair.com/aluminum-wiring-whats-the-problem http://www.alwirerepair.com/aluminum-wiring-whats-the-proble... What might be the case, is that as copper increased in price, manufacturers quickly switched to aluminum but did not allow/adjust properly either for the greater expansion of aluminum when heated, or, did not have their anti-oxidation finishes that coat both the wire and the terminals, perfectly adjusted. If so, current "second generation" motors should be failing at a much lower frequency - but we might not see that as an effect yet due to that group being newer overall. Aluminum conducts electricity much better than aluminum oxide, which forms almost immediately if aluminum is scratched or otherwise exposed to air, thus the anti-oxidation finish.
• rodionos 10y ago
  Looks like a prime opportunity for whoever is manufacturing AK-47 these days to come in and disrupt the market with a washer dryer.
• WalterBright 10y ago
  My furnace is supposed to have a useful life of 15 years. Every once in a while, it breaks and I call the repairman. I watch him work, and there isn't anything complicated about it. It's just figure out which part broke, and replace it. So why does it only last 15 years? You can no longer get replacement parts for it. The machine looks to me like it should last 50 years. The part failures mine had over the last 17 years are: 1. blower motor failed due to the bearings not being lubed, the replacement has sealed bearings and never needs lube 2. a relay on the circuit board failed - new board is $600. The relay is a $2 part. 3. the igniter failed. It's a $25 part, and 5 min to replace it. A $300 service call.
  • steffan 10y ago
    One of the reasons for the limited life would be the longevity of the actual heat exchanger - they will eventually corrode due to the corrosive nature of the exhaust gases passing through them. Additionally, the manufacturer probably doesn't want to have to stock parts for 16+ year old models. An analog would be software; nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work, but good luck getting support.
    • WalterBright 10y ago
      > corrode Corrosion is unlikely to cause any problem with the heat exchanger unless it is really severe, as there are no moving parts in it. > nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work My older machines of that era have all failed due (most likely) to failed capacitors. The disk drives fail most likely due to lubrication issues. The semiconductors fail because all semiconductors fail due to the migration of the doping that occurs when they get warm. None of my 80's machines will power up anymore. I'm not too surprised, they were only built to last a couple years, and it only takes one failure in those enormously complex machines to do the whole thing in. I try to keep my XP machines running because those were the last to support DOS programs and I still support Digital Mars C++ generating DOS programs.
      • CarVac 10y ago
• gkop 10y ago
  Cradle to Cradle (2010) is a great read on this subject, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012KS568 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012KS568 . It's written by a couple industrial designers and I suspect it would be widely interesting to the HN audience.
• Spooky23 10y ago
  I knew a guy who was a "reliability engineer". His gig was to make things predictably reliable. (Or break on schedule) If you want a reliable appliance, buy the least energy efficient, oldest commercial model you can find with most mechanical controls possible. I've had my commercial Speed Queen washer and dryer since 2001.
• lordnacho 10y ago
  He mentions it in the article: It's a failure of feedback that makes this happen. If people can't get reliable information about quality, quality will not determine what they buy. Price will, and price is readily available. To get price down, you need costs down. To do that, you replace the parts with crappy parts. If feedback worked, people would know they were paying less for a less good appliance that will have more downtime, and they would act accordingly. Part of it is statistical noise: you only get to use so many washing machines in your life, and you may or may not have big problems with them. Your only direct evidence on quality then depends on this roll of the dice. Part of it is lack of competition: only 4 competitors. You only need to be in the ballpark of "OK" to sell. You're not scratching around for every customer, there's definitely going to be some. So why spend a lot of money making your machine more reliable? Part of it is cost of information: how much time are you going to spend finding this information? You'll need to learn a bunch of technical terms. And how do you find trustworthy reviews? Most likely reviews are another source of noise, for the same reason as mentioned. So information is expensive to get and anyway if you're right about the manufacturers being the same it's also worthless!
  • throwawaysbdi 10y ago
    Along the same lines, probably the easiest way to get quality in almost every type of product is to buy the commercial version. The people using these products are very familiar with them, so nobody sells garbage. Businesses are also generally more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers. I personally started doing this a few years ago. I even have a throwaway LLC that sounds nebulously like a contractor so I can sign up for "industry only" marketplaces. Since I can usually get wholesale prices doing this, I pay only maybe 30% more than for crap consumer level throwaway stuff. The major downside is the time it takes, but the upside is that none of my stuff ever breaks.
    • j3097736 10y ago
      >more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers. Which means that if you need some replacement part in the future it's going to cost even more.
• tomlock 10y ago
  Isn't this largely driven by consumer demand? The prices of appliances has dropped dramatically in the last few decades. Building a long-lasting appliance often requires even marginally more expensive materials - many of which are highlighted in this article. If consumers are primarily price sensitive at the time of purchase, they may choose the $50 cheaper appliance even if it lasts 40 years less. What I mean to suggest is that price sensitivity at time of purchase often trumps long term gains - which is why you often see things like payday loans being used. When a person is paycheck-to-paycheck they probably aren't thinking about their financial position in 50 years, simply out of necessity. Another reason might be that the Nokia 3310's of the world have been basically prototypical products - they are overdesigned. When the user has a perception that a phone is fragile, what's the threshold? We might not need a phone that can be run over by a truck to think a phone is tough. If the split of material cost -> price point and consumer perception is optimal at a certain point - companies will try and design to that point.
  • harperlee 10y ago
    Completely agree. There are niches were quality is paid for, where appliances no not self-destroy after a couple of years. Cases in point: Kitchenette, Thermomix. But outside these niches, it is a race to the bottom.
  • autokad 10y ago
    part of the issue, and I'm surprised the author didnt mention it, is that in the last 10 years most devices have switched from mechanical to electronic. when i bought my speed queen washer and dryer, the person selling it said they only had mechanical, which some consider an advantage. I tend to agree.
    • chrisseaton 10y ago
      Why's mechanical better? Mechanics stick, break, become worn out. A circuit generally doesn't, does it? I know capacitors burst but they're easy enough to change. Do components like ICs ever just stop working? I would have thought solid-state would be better for endurance.
• lazyjones 10y ago
  I fondly remember my grandmother's old washing machine and stove from the 60's, but what will be left of our economy if we stop throwing away appliances and other products that used to last much longer within 5-10 years? We'll kill off the little growth we have left in the US/EU and go into recession.
• jedberg 10y ago
  HP recently started a new program where you can buy a printer subscription. You no longer have to pay for any ink -- the printer phones homes and orders new ink whenever it gets low. Instead you pay by the page. Apple did a similar thing last year with their phone rental program. If appliance makers are really worried about recurring revenue, maybe they should explore the subscription program. It would then be in their best interest to make things that last longer, since they would have to replace broken equipment sooner, but at the same time, if they make it last long enough, they can get more revenue out of that with a subscription than without it, and it's much smoother revenue.
• qume 10y ago
  Interestingly this whole argument holds true for cars, too.
• jaytaylor 10y ago
  Re: bed mattresses, see http://sleeplikethedead.com http://sleeplikethedead.com By far the most helpful resource out there for learning about available types and characteristics of each so you can make an informed decision. EDIT: Unclear on why this is getting downvoted; explanation would be appreciated. I posted this hoping others might find it useful.
  • sanderjd 10y ago
    I found it useful! Thanks for posting. Don't worry about downvotes too much - they often normalize after awhile.
• snotrockets 10y ago
  This isn't the first piece to claim that new appliances, and cars, and other manufactured goods, are made to lower standards as a conspiracy to sell more. But planned obsolescence isn't a conspiracy, it's a design requirement: there is a requirement to reduce costs, at a greater rate than reduce in production cost due to advancements in manufacturing and logistics. That reduction in cost can not come from thin air, so most balance it by designing products that are not designed to last as long as those that were made 70 years ago. That reduced cost isn't driven as much by consumers no longer ready to pay the high costs that they used to. You can find a premium fridge for +$5,000, but would you be willing to pay that much for a fridge? When adjusted for inflation, that isn't much more than a good refrigerator cost in the 1950s. Only today, a $5,000 would get you a top end fridge, while $495 in 1950's Dollars might allow you to buy an average one then. iow, you'd have to spend much more for premium products then. And because there is less market for $5,000 fridges, it only drives the price of those upwards. Some make the argument that amortized the cost over the lifetime of the appliance, a $5K fridge would cost the same or less per year of service, than a $1,000 one. This discounts the cost to operate the refrigerator (newer ones are more efficient,) and that a dollar spent today is worth more than a dollar saved today. Assuming you can even spend $5,000 today. Most can't. In 10 years, I'd throw that old fridge, and buy a new one, cheaper and better, more efficient, quieter (those 50's refrigerator are quite noisy), and that won't contain as many hazardous and poisonous materials. The problem this creates is one of disposal and recycling, which is one to solve; but arguing that things used to be give better bang for the buck. You get same bang/buck, at a difference balance of features.
  • MakeUsersWant 10y ago
    Will the $5000 fridge last 20 years? How do I know the manufactor isn't lying?
    • snotrockets 10y ago
      Another reason to buy a $500 fridge.
• MakeUsersWant 10y ago
  I would pay for a credible source of information how long various household appliances last. (I buy by TOC, and I also value my time.) The problem is credibility. Manufacturers have an incentive to astroturf "independent" reviews. Insurerers have an incentive to rule out every common fault. And I want the data collection audited. At this point, I'm ripe for appliances-as-a-service unless a big consumer watchdog steps up. Maybe there is room for a built-to-last manufacturer who goes to great lengths to show me they mean it. Maybe commercial appliances marketed to consumers?
  • krapht 10y ago
    Would you? Do you subscribe to consumer reports?
    • MakeUsersWant 10y ago
      I used to read Stiftung Warentest (the big consumer report in Germany). But they don't test for anything related to longevity, so I stopped. Frankly, I don't know where to look.
• makecheck 10y ago
  I just went through this with a refrigerator and I was amazed that I had to spend hours reading reviews of innumerable brands (most of which are really the same, as mentioned in the article) before coming up with even a handful that seemed reasonable. This should have been a simple task but virtually all of them have several got-completely-screwed-a-few-months-after-purchase comments. My own repair guy told me that often the insides of different brands are IDENTICAL, changing only the brand name, door chrome and other superficial things to justify some kind of premium. This means you’ll break down just as often spending thousands more. The companies themselves are becoming lousier, it is not that they are taking your extra money to make a good product.
  • JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    > My own repair guy told me that often the insides of different brands are IDENTICAL, changing only the brand name, door chrome and other superficial things to justify some kind of premium. This means you’ll break down just as often spending thousands more. The companies themselves are becoming lousier, it is not that they are taking your extra money to make a good product. I have a family member who does appliance repair and he says the same thing.
• awinter-py 10y ago
  'how do you purchase a new product that will last 50 years if it's only been on the market for 3' is a really interesting problem. If someone can solve this even partially it will matter. The most interesting question that came up during the 'cash for clunkers' program is 'how much energy does it cost to create a car' -- i.e. the relative fuel efficiency model needs to take into account that the new car needs to be manufactured whereas the manufacture of the 'clunker' is a sunk cost. Planned obsolescence is another interesting question. If a manufacturer advertises reliability and also designs parts that don't last, can I sue them to reclaim the cost of disposing & replacing?
• GuB-42 10y ago
  There is planned obsolescence, sure, but most of the examples in the article are about keeping the price low. And they go cheap because it is what the market demands. We want $300 appliances, and this is what we get. Of course, managing prices that low requires cutting every corner. We can still get high quality stuff if we buy commercial machines... for 10 times the price, like in the old days. However, for most people, it isn't worth it.
• cyberferret 10y ago
  This Christmas just gone, we stayed with some friends in their holiday cabin that their father had hand built back in the 1960's. It had a refrigerator (cannot remember the brand) that had been there since 1961, and it still worked perfectly. The only thing was that you could not open it too many times, otherwise the ice build up would mean you had to turn it off and defrost it. Makes me wonder if 'convenience' leads to a reduction in longevity at all? Nowadays fridges are self defrosting, self cleaning, have built in IoT and a myriad of other features in order to try and make life easier for consumers. Has this abdication of care and responsibility actually cost us in the long run? Perhaps if people went back to having to spend time to care for their goods, and took on a little extra time to ensure simple preventative measures, simplicity of manufacturing could come back in and things will last longer?
  • sokoloff 10y ago
    Self-defrosting freezers are usually (or can be) remarkably simple in implementation. A mechanical timer, driving a DPDT switch (to cut out the compressor and power the defrost mechanism), a snap switch (to regulate the temperature of the defrost), and resistive heating element(s). I wouldn't want to give up that convenience in exchange for troubleshooting the system once a decade when something goes wrong.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Older refrigerators tended to be power hogs (though not always). From the 1970s through the 1990s, possibly 2000s, efficiency improved tremendously. That said, some 1950s manual defrost were quite efficient, though you'd probably want to check door seals.
• WalterBright 10y ago
  The oldest appliance I have in regular use is my Carver amplifier bought in 1980 or so. I use it all day every day. That's nearly 40 years now :-) In "bang for the buck", it's the best purchase I ever made.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    I bought an amp from the 80's for $50 or thereabouts that still works like new. Nothing new would have come close to the value I'm getting from that thing and it still works like a charm. The really surprising thing to me is that the caps are all still good, I fully expected those to give way on first power up and that's now 5 years ago.
• TwoNineFive 10y ago
  The Waste Makers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Makers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Makers
• lobster_johnson 10y ago
  There's a subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/) trying to track objects that don't suffer from planned obsolescence. Not a lot of appliances there, though. The article seems very US-centric, and doesn't mention European brands such as Miele, Bosch, Siemens and Jura (coffee machines), all of which are wholly owned and produce high-quality stuff.
  • nimish 10y ago
    Bosch and Siemens (and Neff) are owned by BSH, most of the european brands are also parts of conglomerates and have stratified low/medium/high end. Except for Miele, but who wants to spend 1000 quid on a washer?
    • rbehrends 10y ago
      You've got it the wrong way around. BSH is a subsidiary of Bosch. It used to be jointly owned by Bosch and Siemens until Bosch bought out Siemens's share.
    • lobster_johnson 10y ago
      Knowing how crappy brands are, I do. If it weren't for the fact that I'm renting a place with no space for a washer or dryer, I'd most definitely get a Miele, no question. I think your information is wrong. BSH is a subsidiary of Bosch, and Bosch is owned by the Bosch foundation. Siemens is also its own conglomerate.
    • hx87 10y ago
      > but who wants to spend 1000 quid on a washer If it means less repair bills and downtime and not having to replace for 25+ years, why the hell not?
• fernly 10y ago
  Consumer Reports[1] has reported reliability figures on all its articles about appliances. It would be interesting to go into its archives and see what the shifts are in brands over the years. [1] http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm
• awful 10y ago
  My experience is: they use cheap, tiny bi-metals in several places in fridge, which fail in no time at all, instead of a real relay/timer. This is a cost reduction of maybe a few dollars - for them this means a lot of money because of quantity, but for me an inexcusable corner cut; the only conclusion is planned obsolescence, or at the least pay the repair tax. On my washer I have had to keep the lid open to prevent rust, and the lid switch I had to reinforce as in the article. Among others; I have personally kept all my appliances including furnaces running for many decades and all the failures have been because of this kind of nonsense.
• magneticnorth 10y ago
  If you were willing to pay the modern-dollar equivalent of the cost of old appliances, you could maybe get appliances that would last decades. If this website is accurate: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html A washer and dryer set in 1950 would cost the equivalent of $5000, and a refrigerator from 1950 would cost $3400
• ygmelnikova 10y ago
  This article's content is summed up in the title. It's nothing but a long copy ad for AppliancSwap, which links to AppliancSchool.com where you too can learn to fix and sell used appliances. Did I mention Applianc*Swap? Buy now for $147.00
• jondubois 10y ago
  It's just like every other company that shares an oligopoly over an industry; they keep diluting the quality of their product over time but they do it slowly enough that nobody notices. There was a case where Cadbury (the UK chocolate company) changed the recipe for their 'Cadbury Creme Egg' (to make it more profitable) but they changed the recipe too much and there was some backlash from consumers. There are other cases though where hardly anyone notices. I know someone who worked for McDonalds in Australia who told me a story that the size of the buns used to make 'Quarter Pounder' burgers decreased suddenly - It seems that almost nobody noticed (except for the employees). Also, pizzas from big brands have been getting progressively smaller over time and the toppings have gotten increasingly thin. Same with fruits, vegetables and grains. I'm sure that soil quality has gone down and vegetables are lower quality today than they were 20 years ago. I was travelling around Europe over the past year and I noticed that the quality of fruits, vegetables and grains seems to vary significantly between different countries.
  • pm 10y ago
    I distinctly remember when McDonalds reduced the size of the buns. I don't remember the exact time (early 00s perhaps?), but I do remember being pissed off. A typical corporate "reduce costs" manoeuvre, but I guess you couldn't expect any less of McDonalds.
• rotwood 10y ago
  This whole article could have been avoided if the author was introduced to the concept of planned obsolescence, an umbrella that reaches across each point they argued and even beyond it.
  • gerbilly 10y ago
    Apparently not. From the article: > It’s either incompetence or more likely, planned obsolescence.
• dmh2000 10y ago
  competition based on price enabled by online price comparison. consumers buy lots of things based on who is the cheapest. even being $1 cheaper will win a sale. so it becomes a race to the bottom.
• SeanDav 10y ago
  On a related note, I accidentally cracked the touch screen of my 8 year old Ford Radio/AC control unit. Cost to replace 4,500 GBP, which is more than the entire value of the car currently. Insane, because it basically means if you crack the touch screen, you have to scrap the car, if you want to claim via insurance. Managed to get it replaced with a second hand one for £300, including labour.
  • pcurve 10y ago
    can you imagine cracking LCDs in this car? (not a concept btw) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZpBy_5xAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZpBy_5xAA Skip to 0:30
    • Nition 10y ago
      Looks like a nightmare for trying to adjust anything while driving as well. At least it's got a couple of real control knobs I guess.
    • kalleboo 10y ago
      Or the Tesla's 17" screen... http://www.hashslush.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/tesla_1.jpg http://www.hashslush.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/tesla_1....
• tootie 10y ago
  Not mentioned is that LG and Samsung have been caught colluding before.
• rayiner 10y ago
  This discussion is useless without knowing how much those appliances cost compared to ones today. My wife and I just bought a house (after more than a decade of renting) and for the first time were in the market for a washer/dryer. I was expecting to have to spend a few thousand dollars, but turns out that you can get a washer and dryer under $1,000 at a big box store! I suspect the market has optimized for low acquisition cost, and longevity is a side-effect. People these days move more, rent for longer before buying a house, and remodel their houses more often. I wouldn't be surprised at all if manufacturers were incentivized to make cheaper units that can be replaced every 10 years when the "start to look dated" rather than ones that last 50 years.
• upofadown 10y ago
  I tend to see this sort of thing as not a failure of competitive markets but an consequence of them working too well. With perfect competition everyone ends up with close to zero margins. One way to avoid this problem is to make a high end product for a while, gain a good reputation and then cost reduce the heck out of the product. Then you can charge for the high end product while only paying to make the absolute cheapest thing that sort of looks like the original product. You get to actually make some money for a while. Professional marketers apparently refer to this sort of manoeuvre as "harvesting the brand".
• mrfusion 10y ago
  On the other hand cars have gotten way better. I wonder why? I remember in 1990s it would be somewhat remarkable to see a car from the 70s. But in the 2010s it's pretty common to see cars from the 90s. And the paint in my nine year old car basically looks brand new.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Non-US cars lasted. Volvo, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Honda, Toyota, especially. American mid-to-low market passenger cars, not so much. (Pickup trucks somewhat moreso.)
  • blt 10y ago
    1990s cars have a nice mixture of simplicity and modern engineering practices. Cars nowadays are more complicated due to safety/emissions/efficiency goals and buyer preference for electronic gadgets. I'm not sure we'll see as many 2010s cars on the road in the 2030s.
  • csours 10y ago
    Resale value is part of it. People buy Car Brand A because they know they can sell it in 5-6 years at a decent price. People generally don't look at resale value when shopping for appliances.
• wolfgke 10y ago
  The German appliance manufacturer Miele has been making quality long-lasting products for decades. They are rather in the upper price segment, but not without reason in Germany they say, if some appliance breaks down: "Next time you better buy it from Miele.".
• JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  Good luck finding modern electronic parts that will be supported for 50 years. Also, seriously, you see so many people scoffing at the idea of supporting anything for any length of time. It is just the engineering mentality now-a-days; nobody wants to work on anything "old". Can you imagine trying to hire someone to maintain the software/electronics for appliances in 5 years much less 50?
  • user5994461 10y ago
    You'll have no problem recruiting the people over 30 who are not interested in the ever changing web dev.
• beefman 10y ago
  In a large class of models of global macroeconomic growth, instantaneous output grows over time relative to the integral of past output. This plausibly explains increasing "throwaway culture".[1] You wouldn't have wanted a computer from 1995 in the year 2000. And you probably don't want a phone from 2012 today. Well, everything is getting more like that. [1] https://twitter.com/clumma/status/593890418028253185 https://twitter.com/clumma/status/593890418028253185
  • philipkglass 10y ago
    And yet with the slowdown of Moore's Law, I'm actually fine using a computer from 2012 for most tasks. I expect that using a 5 year old phone will eventually be just fine too. It's not like the 1990s anymore where everything ran perceptibly faster, with the exact same binaries, if you bought new hardware every couple of years.
    • beefman 10y ago
      For me the old phone would be pretty painful. It's an iPhone 4 with 32 GB storage (max), 960×640 display, 5 megapixel camera, and no LTE. It's got a 32-bit processor with half as many cores as my current phone, running at less than half the clock speed. Not all technologies improve at the same rate, or at a steady rate over time. But the optimal replacement interval of goods on average seems to be decreasing.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Moore's law applies to a very small fraction of tech enhancements.
• ronnier 10y ago
  Of the list I didn't see any Japanese brands... and I guess it makes since because I don't see many Japanese washers, refrigerators, etc outside of Japan. The ones I bought while living in Japan seemed good and of high quality... I had no issues with them. I wonder why they aren't sold outside of Japan?
  • kalleboo 10y ago
    There seems to be more willingness to pay extra for build quality or domestic manufacturing here in Japan than elsewhere. Japanese brands are sold in some other parts of South-East Asia where they cash in on the Japanese quality reputation
• twindlelee 10y ago
  Decrease or remove altogether sales tax/VAT on appliances that come with a 10-year guarantee.
• mrbill 10y ago
  When we moved into this house 12 years ago, I got the cheapest, simplest, most "mechanical" washer and dryer set that Lowe's offered (I think it's branded GE). Haven't had a single problem other than the light inside the dryer eventually burned out when a housemate left the door open. I know that when one of them eventually fails, it will hopefully be a cheap and simple mechanical fix. I have no desire to own a "major appliance" (W/D, dishwasher, fridge) that has LCD screens, Internet connectivity, or any of those features that you don't really need and are just another point of failure. I manage computers all day at work, I don't want to come home and have to apply a firmware update to my washing machine.
  • foxylad 10y ago
    Microwave ovens are another classic. We got ours 25 years ago, and it's still going strong. In fact several people who know about appliances have warned us never to ditch it - apparently the magnetron tubes for all modern microwave ovens burn out in a couple of years.
    • mrbill 10y ago
      When we moved into this house, the wife made noises about replacing the "ancient" oven [0]. I asked "Has the technique of cooking food with heat, changed drastically since the 70s?" We left it in. When I went to college in 1993, I was given my grandmother's original Amana RadarRange microwave from 1968 or so, the model with the two dials and the "done" buzzer that wouldn't stop until you hit a button [1]. It was huge, HEAVY, and we joked that it was full of lead shielding, but it got used for three years of college and after that was donated to my workplace when I moved to Austin. As far as I know it kept working there for another 2-3 years, and by then was most likely 25+ years old. [0] https://goo.gl/photos/qrgoixCJDViks8am9 https://goo.gl/photos/qrgoixCJDViks8am9 [1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hLhXgVAYoAE/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hLhXgVAYoAE/maxresdefault.jpg Addendum: I just realized that the microwave I have sitting in the kitchen was given to us as a wedding gift in 2001. The clock no longer works properly, but it cooks just fine.
      • reitanqild 10y ago
• mc32 10y ago
  It'd be nice if someone would create modular appliances so that as efficiencies are achieved the inefficient part could be replaced. It'd be even nicer if mfgs had standards so that many parts could be interchanged without any work or adjustments. I've had to replace switches, as well as some cheap plastic parts which should sell for a couple of dollars at most, but they go for $20-40, and that's if you know how to buy them, if you get a repair person to replace the part, not counting the labor, those parts are going to run some multiple of the Amazon prices.
• intrasight 10y ago
  that appliances in the US are cheap is partially the result of the fact that manufacturers are not responsible for the disposal costs. I From Wikipedia: "Although appliance recycling is still quite new, countries have been making the effort to enact laws and regulations regarding the electric waste. Early addressing of waste home appliance recycling started with Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany." Also from Wikipedia is the top photo from that article. "New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: mounds of trashed appliances with a few smashed automobiles mixed in, waiting to be scrapped". So perhaps not a fair cover photo since most any appliance would be junked after being under water for days.
• ibgib 10y ago
  I must say that this is one of my primary use cases for ibGib. The point is to have a review system (and advertising) that is not superficial but rather the "review" lasts the lifetime of the product. When you buy an appliance, you ibGib it. This means you take pics of the machine, the model number, the guarantees, manuals, etc. Then periodically (or at the very least when it dies or has a failure) you ibGib _that_. It is basically big (& open) data with tamper resistant integrity (no deletes, hashed content, public identity, more). E.g. Still very early days (only me on full stack), but here is the ibGib I just did the other day when we got a new calphalon pan: https://www.ibgib.com/ibgib/pic%5EF1D5A3B90BB7580442405402A71FC21712A2DE36A3462C885F15C3DF6C9DD7EE https://www.ibgib.com/ibgib/pic%5EF1D5A3B90BB7580442405402A7... (This particular use case is like a product-lifetime blog.)
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    What is ibGib? What does the name represent?
    • ibgib 10y ago
      > What is ibGib? This is a broad question, as ibGib is many things. To be precise, it is its own question and answer, so the answer to this would be "ibGib". This would encompass your definition of ibGib, Bob's definition, etc., but this would probably overly pedantic. Basically it's different things and has many use cases. As for ibGib WRT software, it's an engine/architecture that I'm implementing (https://github.com/ibgib/ibgib https://github.com/ibgib/ibgib, https://www.ibgib.com https://www.ibgib.com). It's probably easiest to think of the engine as a graph database (but it isn't) and the web app as one interface to the engine. The data store architecture has only four fields: ib, gib, data, and rel8ns. The ib is user-controlled variable "name"; the data is internal state as a key-value store; gib is a sha-256 hash of the ib, data, and rel8ns fields; and the rel8ns is a list of named relationships to other ibGibs. So the ib+gib (ib^gib) acts as a content-addressable URL to the ibGib itself. The rel8ns turns the graph into what is now thought of as a merkle graph - or possibly forest, since the rel8ns allow for multiple single graph paths/projections to be created. So any ibGib has internal data and relationships to other ibGibs maintained via ib^gib pointers. Since these pointers contain the gib hash, this provides integrity and verification of the structure. I've seen a lot of similarities in ibGib's structure with things like IPFS and others, but unlike such systems, ibGib is not file/folder-centric. Those are like two specific roles of ibGibs: files are focused mainly on the internal data, and folders are focused on the relationships (but they have only one type of relationship: hierarchical/containment). > What does the name represent? That is an extremely interesting question for me personally. Suffice to say that the acronym was first conceived with the phrase "i believe God is being" (I was agnostic borderline atheist at the time). Since it has a religious context, I avoid speaking too much to it in others' forums. (But for me, it's about logic.) I'm planning on doing a Show HN here in the future once I have a couple more features implemented! I'd love to talk to you (or anyone) about it in more detail if you're interested. :-)
• jorblumesea 10y ago
  The quality of every domestic product has consistently declined as corporations (and shareholders) eke pennies out of every part of manufacturing. If it saves 5 cents per machine it gets cut from the process, even if it means years off the lifespan of the end product.
• anigbrowl 10y ago
  tl;dr more proof that capitalism is broken
• carapace 10y ago
  There's a huge international ecosystem of sorts. Cf. "Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade" by Adam Minter. Metal is made into shoddy components and appliances and sold to the consumer. When they break, they're scrapped, recycled, and remanufactured into new shoddy components and appliances. The material cycles in a loop, pumping cash.
• seiferteric 10y ago
  Weird I got a whirlpool washer that looks almost exactly like the washer in the picture in 2011 but I have 0 rust.
• kev009 10y ago
  I can't help but draw tons of similarities to technology/software and especially the armies of "DevOps" that "smart" companies now seem happy to employ to keep a rickety pile of cascading ill-understanding be semi-reliable on whole. I'm not really inclined to conspiracy in the large but there are probably some small and lots of subconscious (for example managerial empire building) forces designed to fully employ and otherwise bolster certain economic localities (manager's headcount/power, company's volume->quarterly P&L) that have pulled us in this direction. A rising tide lifts all ships kind of thing, if the rising tide is more units sold, and more people building/tweaking the products. Unfortunately that is massive amounts of waste, and if you care about quality as a virtue.. misery in every direction. Back to appliances, it's interesting to think about energy use as a whole.. newer motors, refrigeration tech etc may be more efficient, but if you have to replace it 3x it's likely a net loss due to energy expended in manufacturing and shipping. For example, over half of the pollution for a car is caused by manufacturing, so buying a new more efficient car for altruistic reasons is basically worse than maintaining a used car.
• the_cat_kittles 10y ago
  this reminds me of one of my favorite youtube channels, AvE: https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil https://www.youtube.com/user/arduinoversusevil he takes apart tools to see what they are made of and determines points of failure and longevity. of course he has a love of things built to last, just like anyone who makes stuff. makes me realize that with a little learning, we should all be able to see past crap products that are built to fail.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• dghughes 10y ago
  All I know is my dad's cousin who has been an appliance repair man for 50 years says never buy a front load washer.
• mkhalil 10y ago
  Seems like a lot of the things that used to be a standard (e.g. metal thickness, quality paint coats) are now considered premium. Wolf for instance makes excellent appliances, but expect to pay anywhere from 3-10x more than a "standard" appliance. For using "older" methods/technologies. Crazy world we live in. note: Same can be said about furniture. Arhaus/Restoration Hardware is way more expensive than say ArtVan, for the old rustic look that last's longer.
  • theoh 10y ago
    Sounds like a combination of commercial optimization (aka race-to-the-bottom) at one end of the market with William Morris-esque fetishization of solidity and sensible/traditional design at the other end.
• joesb 10y ago
  Don't forget survival bias.
• dbg31415 10y ago
  Let's say you had an appliance that lasted 20 years. Would you keep it through all the remodels and renovations? What in a modern house doesn't need to be / get replaced after 20 years? Floors, windows, roof, AC / heater, thermostats, doors, hot water heater, ceiling fans, bathroom fans, toilets... I've replaced all of those in my ~20 year-old house. Some because the originals broke, some because I wanted new / better things. Man... I hate hate hate short toilets (the kind where you were like 14 inches off the ground at most and your junk always hit the front rim). Now every toilet is at least 17" tall and properly elongated, with jet-flush tech that never clogs. And those old short 30" counters like they built back in the day -- as a 6'1" guy bending over to shave in my own house? I think not. All those things built to old shitty standards had to go. Replaced fridge and dishwasher about 5 years ago (replaced the 15 year-old builder-quality appliances that had been installed). Replaced the stove and range hood to get something a little more fancy... Why smell things cooking (and risk the smell getting sucked into all your closets and ruining your dry cleaning -- thanks to central air) when you can just get a 900 CF/M fan to suck away all the cooking smells. So I guess my point is just... do we really want these things to last a life time? We're a throwaway culture. Any excuse to buy something new isn't a terrible thing... who knows what the trend will be 5-10 years from now... maybe we'll have carbonation machines in our fridges and I'll want one of those. Our parents appliances did last longer, but their fridge didn't have a water filter or an ice machine, or double doors and LED lights and 36 cubic feet of space that magically fits in the same space as my old fridge that had like 30 cubic feet... Gave this more thought... the appliance manufacturers aren't to blame here... it's shoppers preferences and the disposable, competitive culture we live in. I perpetually want the latest, greatest, and most stylish thing I can get. I think they are just selling me what I want to buy...
• pbreit 10y ago
  I think the author is missing one factor: people want to upgrade after 10-15 years. Also seems like an odd business if you think used appliances are cruddy.
• mlok 10y ago
  I hope the "Increvable" ("Indestructable") washing machine project will end up being commercialized. "L'increvable meets precise specifications in order serve its user over a fifty-year period while guaranteeing a purchase price similar to or lower than that of a conventional washing machine." http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/en-GB/projects/lincrevable/ http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/en-GB/projects/lincrevable/
• offbeatmammal 10y ago
  the Aga - https://www.agamarvel.com/aga/who-we-are/history-of-aga/ https://www.agamarvel.com/aga/who-we-are/history-of-aga/ - that we had in our house growing up literally lasted longer than the house! It was a 1940s model that was still in use about 10 years ago when subsidence caused the kitchen to need a major rebuild! If my Mum hadn't wanted to update to a modern gas stove it would probably have still been going strong today...
• MarkG509 10y ago
  Adding my experience to the chorus, my 'fridge is a GE TA-12S that I have owned for 34 years. It was 'old' when I bought the place, so my guess is that it is approaching 40 years of age. Not a single problem in all that time, though I suspect it could use a new door seal. It is a manual-defrost model, which gives me the opportunity every few months (or when the door no longer closes :) to thoroughly clean it out. The only other issue is that I have had to raise the temperature setting (rotate the 'wheel' away from "Coldest") from time to time over the years. It started at about 6 and is now past 3. If the trend continues, have a good 10 years left before it ices up completely. Although it is true that it is not very efficient. A rough guess, based on having left it unplugged for over a month while traveling earlier this year, would be that it uses $0.65 (ConEd rates in NY) per day. Enjoyed and agreed with the article, thanks!
• kylehotchkiss 10y ago
  Also: cars. They are so plasticy these days.
• jaimex2 10y ago
  removed
  • dang 10y ago
    Please don't do this here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13911239 and marked it off-topic.
• wtbob 10y ago
  I'd love to replace my nearly 20-year-old fridge, but there is literally no fridge on the market with anything approaching its build quality, not even for thousands of dollars. Everything is pot metal & cheap plastic, and I know that even if I spend quite a bit of money, I'm going to end up with something which breaks in just a few years. I don't really know what to do. The current one isn't very energy efficient, isn't laid out very well — but it's better than any of my other options. Is there some small bespoke fridge maker out there?
  • fosk 10y ago
    Check this out: http://www.subzero-wolf.com/sub-zero http://www.subzero-wolf.com/sub-zero
• sankalp_sans 10y ago
  While this would remind one of planned obsolescence, this could very well be something less sinister- the sheer scale at which manufacturing happens. Families have grown manifolds since the golden age of quality manufacturing. More demand in the market leads to reckless research / planning / manufacturing, and therefore degradation in quality. There's a reason why craftsmanship is dying, and the reason might very well be that lesser and lesser number of people want it anymore.
• douche 10y ago
  My dad still runs equipment that was manufactured 30-50 years ago. It's all mechanical and its damn near indestructible. It's skidders and farm tractors, so its simple stuff, but yhe reliability is not to be beaten.
• locusm 10y ago
  A friend put me on to this sub. https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/
• NPMaxwell 10y ago
  There is a business here: prep appliances post-purchase to last decades: reinforce some parts, paint others, etc.
• tiatia 10y ago
  Well, there are crazy people everywhere (don't need to understand the language, just look at the pics) http://www.zabex.de/site/waschmaschine.html http://www.zabex.de/site/waschmaschine.html Regarding the opening link: " I’ve bought and sold refrigerators and freezers from the 1950’s that still work perfectly fine." This may be true but in many countries electricity costs will kill you if you run a freezer from the 50ies.
• eatbitseveryday 10y ago
  Planned obsolescence is what happened. This is an educating documentary about the subject [1] and is worth watching. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdh7_PA8GZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdh7_PA8GZU
• cylinder 10y ago
  What about German appliances?
• Ericson2314 10y ago
  Make Appliances Great Again /s
• rebootthesystem 10y ago
  I have a shop vacuum that is about 35 years old. All metal, robust, solid. I bought it way back when for, if I remember correctly, $300. It has seen a lot of use and it still works like new. I still have a couple of HP-41 calculators. Over thirty years old and they look brand new and work as new. Here they are, on my desk. Always there as computers, keyboards and trackballs have come and gone. The same is true of power tools (not battery operated) of that era (early 80's). My Bridgeport milling machine is another example. Yes, it's an industrial machine so the comparison might not be fair but the electronics function as new. One of my biggest concerns as we were forced to transition into RoHS chemistry for electronics assembly has always been product lifetime. The intent of RoHS was, of course, to reduce pollution. I think that, in practice, it may have produced exactly the opposite effect. Sure someone has studied this. I hope I am wrong. How is this the case? Well, RoHS solder chemistry has problems. From brittle solder joints to tin whiskers, the latter being a huge concern. Whereas prior to RoHS one could build a great product like and HP-41 calculator and have it last decades, RoHS ended all of that. There is absolutely no way to prevent or predict tin whisker growth. Consumer electronics companies do not report failures (to be fair, the probably don't see most of them) and we have no real way to track people just tossing electronic products in the trash and why they do so. Having tin whiskers is like having guaranteed obsolescence. Products will fail and there is no way to predict when and how. Which, to me, means we are probably dumping more shit in landfills than we used to. In other words, my HP-41 hasn't gone into a landfill in over thirty years and it is unlikely to do so in another thirty. But nearly every other post-RoHS calculator is likely to end-up there because of these unpredictable failures. And so, while the intent of RoHS was to clean the planet I have a feeling they have effectively setup the world for massive product failures over the years and far greater piles of electronics waste to contend with.
• ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Great article, absolutely the wrong conclusion and solution. If you would pay $100 more for a washer with a 50 year warranty, there would be a washer with a 50 year warranty. It really is that simple. So many people choose by price, then quality, the best thing you can say about appliances today is that they cost less in real dollars than the ones from the 50's and 60's. If you chose your appliance the other way, quality first and then price, the manufacturers would put in quality to get you to pay more. Every single thing mentioned in the article if you compare an appliance "with" that thing from the 50's to one "without" that thing today, every time by leaving it out you can sell for less, or sell for the same as the competition and make more profit. Metal thickness? check. Motor quality? check. Anti-rust coating? Check. Durable control circutry? Check. Everything. You want to change the market, then the market has to prefer quality over price, and pay for it even when there is a cheaper, lower quality alternative.
  • jemfinch 10y ago
    > [T]he market has to prefer quality over price, and pay for it even when there is a cheaper, lower quality alternative. That's really hard to do when so much of the market is living paycheck to paycheck. Many people want to choose quality, but simply can't afford it: their dishwasher is broken and they've got to steal from the food budget or the kids' Christmas gifts to fix it before Thanksgiving. The decline in appliance quality has the same root cause as the rise of Walmart: real wages have stagnated and regressed since the halcyon days of heavy metal gauges and fifty year motors, and people simply can't afford to pay a premium for quality. (They can't afford not to, either; "the poor man pays twice" and all that. But when you're living paycheck to paycheck it often seems like there's no real choice.)
    • ChuckMcM 10y ago
      It is hard to do, and it is harder for these folks to understand that paying for quality is cheaper than going for the lowest price. A $500 washing machine that lasts 50 years "costs" $10/year (after 50 years you'll have to replace it with another one). A $300 Washing Machine that lasts 10 years costs $30/year. Or conversely a $300 machine that lasts 10 years will be re-bought 5 times over a 50 year period ($1,500), but a $500 machine that lasts 50 years will be bought once ($500) over a 50 year period. So buying the "quality" machine actually stretches your paycheck further because you won't be re-buying a machine in 10 years. Of course it is really hard to help people understand that math, but once they do they can find a whole lot of cost savings in their lives.
• aaron695 10y ago
  Planned obsolescence is a myth, ever seen a leaked memo where people discuss planned obsolescence? It's just there's no incentive to make products last past warranty, so it doesn't happen. Anyway, ever tried to move a 40 year old fridge? Good luck to your back. They are also not very energy efficient. But yes, TCO is a interesting topic we humans and markets can often get wrong.
• speeder 10y ago
  I am 29, my parents stove+oven already existed when I was born. I already had to deal with new ones 4 times, including one I personally purchased when I lived alone for a while... None of them ever got close to the 'granny' version my parents have in quality, the stove I bought never really pleased me. I think it is just sad... My parents also have older than me: Photo Camera with cool interesting lenses. A VHS player. Programmable calculators. Also one of my dad favourite computers, that he is still using, is a now 13 year old HP laptop... He happily uses WinXP and the newest Ubuntu in it without issue, and use it as his main coding computer, because despite being 13 years old, it works better than any of his new laptops, it doesn't misbehave, don't get slow out of the blue, and is just more useable and sturdy... he only uses his most new laptop when he needs beefier amounts of RAM and CPU, but for day to day stuff, the 13 year laptop somehow is faster. (I am not even sure how or why, but it is, I also used that laptop myself for a long time).
• thinkloop 10y ago
  Many things have gone down in quality in favor of being cheaper and/or more widely available: - sound quality is worse: cds >> mp3s - flying is slower: concorde >> easyjet - articles more errorful: newsrooms >> bloggers - etc. People prefer to consume more, different, faster, rather than less, better, slower. And, of course, the true cost of externalities (on the environment et al) is not properly factored in.
• guelo 10y ago
  Yay capitalism
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• kuon 10y ago
  I live in switzerland and I have a liebherr fridge and Schulthess washing machines. Mine are new (I moved in 7 years ago), but I know they will last. Everything I've seen while traveling (hotels...) seems super crappy compared to that. I wonder why those brands are not exported more.
  • Strom 10y ago
    I'm in Estonia and have a 10 year old Liebherr fridge. Not a single thing has broken yet, not even a bulb. I don't remember the brand of my old fridge that I also had for 10 years, but it was replaced due to size as opposed to a fault.
  • kalleboo 10y ago
    Here in Japan, the domestic brands (even ones that are struggling like Sharp) still make household appliances for the domestic market that feel a lot better built than the stuff I remember from Sweden. They also advertise higher-end models as "Made in Japan".
• unlmtd 10y ago
  Nothing but State-backed monopolies. 'Limited liability' 'State privilege' and 'Intellectual property' hard at work. Beehee!
• rumcajz 10y ago
  Let's start with ourselves. How long is the software you are writing going to work?
• tomaskafka 10y ago
  And that's why I bought few years used Miele washer instead of new AEG. Just works, reliably. And it weighs around 90 kg :).
• marze 10y ago
  Can't resist: my parents bought a KitchenAid dishwasher in 1970. It still operates to this day (45 years). For a fun read, find the Smithsonian magazine article about the inventor of the dishwasher. Incredible. I like my Bosch dishwasher, even if I think it has only five more years max.
  • hvidgaard 10y ago
    Bosch in general make some of the better products.
• eveningcoffee 10y ago
  It looks like there is no other solution than to criminalize planned obsolescence.
• PeterStuer 10y ago
  It is not just the manufacturer. The large chains in retail have some responsibility in this as well. That same make/model machine you buy at a big national chain store might very well have cheaper components in it than the same make/model at a small retailer because the chain used its negotiating power to drive down the price-point. Well, at least that is what a repair guy told me years ago.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• lucaspiller 10y ago
  > Not enough competition. There are basically only four major appliance manufacturers in the world I was browsing for a new refrigerator - my apartment has fitted appliances so there isn't really much choice, most stores here maybe 10 fitted vs 50+ free-standing. Anyway, one shop had a model by Electrolux, Zanussi and AEG next to each other, which are all brands of AB Electrolux - each model was exactly the same (looks and specs), except for the badge and the price :s
• cel1ne 10y ago
  I don't think this is so much about competition. I live in Vienna where most flats get heat and warm water from gas-powered combination boilers. There are a couple of companies who produce them. Mine is 25 years old. The guy who comes for maintenance once a year says it should have broken down 10 years ago and he is only doing little fixes, but not swapping out larger parts anymore because: "If I replace something big, it might just stop working, then you have to get a new boiler, and those are all bad and break after 3 years."
  • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    You might find you are paying for that in energy costs, modern condensing boilers are much more efficient.
    • cel1ne 10y ago
      I thought about it too but compared it to friends with similar flats and my bill isn't off.
• tracker1 10y ago
  One solution would be to have minimum FULL-REPLACEMENT warranty requirements for home appliances of 10-15 years... If it doesn't last 10 years, the mfg (or whoever owned it at the time of mfg) would be responsible. Sounds ripe for a class action lawsuit against the major brands.
• lb1lf 10y ago
  I guess much of the reason is that appliances are dirt cheap now, compared to what they used to be. That cost savings obviously does something to the build quality. When clearing out my grandmother's house a few years ago, my uncle and I almost broke our backs trying to get the freezer out. It felt like it weighed a ton, even empty. My grandmother told us it had been a wedding present, and that they had been totally awestruck at the time at the generous present from her parents-in-law. After all, a decent freezer cost at least 2,000 kroner! (At this time, the average yearly gross pay was just in excess of 7,000 kroner.) My grandparents married in 1950. Since then, monetary value has been reduced twenty-fold. You can still buy a top-loading freezer for 2,000 kroner; I just checked. So - in 1950, you had to work for five months to earn money for a freezer (after taxes.) In 2017, I have to work one day for a freezer (after taxes.)
• lowkeyokay 10y ago
  I don't buy too much into the 'build to fail' argument. Rather, I think it's just a matter of consumers choosing features and price over longevity. You can't really prove longevity here and now. Of course you can build up a reputation but it takes time and might not pay off. Anecdote 1: Miele has a very good reputation. They also cost three times as much as the volume sellers and have a much lower market share. Sorry, no evidence of that claim. The closest is an article [1] claiming they produce 850.000 units per year. Anecdote 2: I just replaced a cheap ($200) oven from Ikea (made by Whirlpool). Most likely the heater had broken. Inspection, parts and repair would probably cost the same as a new one. It had lasted 5 years, just past the warranty. We bought a new one, same model. It's simply too cheap to repair. My conclusion: Lousy quality is our own fault - we do have options. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/12092140/Why-pricey-Miele-has-the-cheapest-products-on-the-market.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Blaming consumers for choosing price over longevity is like blaming water for flowing downhill. Both phenomena are perfectly predictable, so there's really no one with agency to blame there - just like a bunch of water molecules can't reverse the flow of a river, a bunch of consumers won't change this dynamic. Instead, one should focus on those who willingly profit off such phenomenas. Now, you could argue that with sufficiently intense competition, companies will keep outdoing one another in selling cheapest crap. That indeed is a predictable and well-known failure mode of the market economy. The question is, whether appliance market suffers from too intense competition, or if there is a place for a lifetime-appliance supplier there. If there isn't, then IMO a good solution would be extended mandatory warranty periods (25+ years) and/or requirement to use user-servicable components and release full schematics when company goes out of business or cancels a product line.
    • lowkeyokay 10y ago
      Fair enough. My point though is that there is the option to by a better washer but most people - including myself - choose the cheaper option.
• unscaled 10y ago
  More than just lack of competition, cost-cutting measures or planned obsolescence - I think this also has to do with what marketing. Consumers will buy devices that feel attractive. Shiny touch screens sell. Shiny plastic sells. Over-the-top features sell. Boring mechanical machines don't sell. Thick and sturdy looking metal doesn't sell. Customers want the advanced features which make these once-simple devices complicated and more error-prone and they also want their devices to be more lightweight (hence more plastic and thinner metal) and be curvy, not boxlike (which is why we stopped having smooth surfaces).
• kxyvr 10y ago
  A similar trend happened in the sewing machine world. Basically, most of the manufacturing of the machines moved to Asia where the quality control dropped and the designs used cheaper parts. Even premium brands like Bernina moved their manufacturing to Thailand and their quality dropped precipitously. Anyway, to that end, does anyone know a good, modern sewing machine? Really, I just want a rock solid straight and zigzag stitch with no other frills that works on material up to denim and, if possible, both wovens and knits. I don't have a lot of room at home, so an industrial machine would be a little difficult to manage. My mechanic likes modern Brothers, but he also sells them, so there's a bit of a conflict of interest.
  • 6d61726b 10y ago
    The Bernina 1008 is great. Yes, it is made in Thailand, but the quality is still excellent. I guess it isn't very modern though, it hasn't changed since being introduced more than 15 years ago, and even then it's pretty much the same as its predecessor.
  • UncleSlacky 10y ago
    I'll double check with my wife, but I believe Husqvarna still make somewhat decent machines, also possibly Toyota.
• saycheese 10y ago
  Branding is the real enemy of quality, as it makes consumers lazy. Consumers might say they care about quality, but ask them to define it beyond "it lasts" and they will likely say brand. For example, take searching the web, what's the best search engine and how often do you think people compare the options they have and the quality of the search results?
• somecallitblues 10y ago
  Had a Whirlpooi front loader washing machine which started electrocuting me after 18 months. They repaired it under warranty and it started doing the same thing a few months later. With a small child in the house I didn't want it here so sold it to some guy on eBay who didn't mind getting zapped. Should have seen him touch it when he came to pick it up. Now I a Bosh which seems much more solid.
• Tepix 10y ago
  There is an obvious solution, isn't there? Appliances should be available for rent. The pricing would have to be designed so that when the appliance lasts more than, say 10 years, the manufacturer will reap extra benefits. If it lasts shorter than 10 years, they will lose money.
• illestvillain 10y ago
  I consider eshops like Aliexpress.com pretty good for getting cheap obscure replacement parts. Eg. I can buy there a new battery or other parts for the oldest PSP model for a few bucks.
• fauria 10y ago
  In relation with the topic of programmed obsolescence, I highly recommend the documentary "The Light Bulb Conspiracy" by Cosima Dannoritzer: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825163 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825163
• allendoerfer 10y ago
  I already try to buy the brands known for their quality and extended guarantees, but you do not know, which of them still produce here and which just benefit of their past. You do not even know, which company actually owns which brands. This is not only about avoiding to replace your own machine, it's also about everybody else’s machine littering the environment. So I think, this is a market failure and an environmental disaster. Governments have to intervene. New EU rule: Everything, which is heavier than 10kg has to last for 10 years, otherwise mandatory on-site repair and replacement. If you get caught putting in parts designed to fail (maybe even with reversal of burden of proof), the company has to pay back a multiple of the profits made from that machine, plus mandatory prison sentences. Problem solved.
• ishi 10y ago
  Here's an idea: build a website that collects reliability statistics about home appliances by maker and model. Let users report when exactly they bought a specific appliance, and how long it lasted without repairs (or following repairs). Such statistics could help users make an informed choice, and also put some pressure on manufacturers to improve the reliability of their products. Or maybe they'll just sue the site out of existence...
  • ysavir 10y ago
    > and also put some pressure on manufacturers to improve the reliability of their products. You mean put pressure on them to wait for the site to get traction and then flood it with fake reviews.
  • IshKebab 10y ago
    Basically Which?
• AtticusTheGreat 10y ago
  The person responsible for this makes his money on craigslist, probably buying and selling old appliances. So he probably has a lot to gain by getting people to buy old "better" appliances off of craigslist than the "terrible" new appliances at a box store. Sure, maybe he's right, but it is worth considering when reading this article.
• alkonaut 10y ago
  Here is a guess: the fridge that lasted 50 years cost a months salary, while the fridge that lasts 10 years costs 1/5 a months salary. So you get exactly what you pay for, and you pay exactly as much for "having a fridge" today as you did when they lasted 50 years. But here is the kicker: a) People don't want to pay big money for something they don't know will last 50 years,. b) People want new things. While it's convenient to not have to replace something for decades, they also want to remodel their kitchen efter 10-15 years, at which time thet fridge needs replacement anyway (in 2000 it was chrome, in 2010 it needs to be black, etc). That said, it would be good if the people who want new things could sell their old ones, instead of throwing them away.
  • amelius 10y ago
    Perhaps it would be better if people buy refrigeration as a service. Then the service provider can worry about such things as lifetime, maintenance, replacement, and selling old refrigerators. And there would be no incentive for "planned obsolescence".
    • alkonaut 10y ago
      I think this will very much be the case of a lot of things. People will "own" less things and instead lease. It's a trend in cars, and I think more and more things will go this way. I don't want to make big investments and I don't want to maintain things (which means they own me more than I own them). Repainting the house or worrying about the lifetime of my boiler is exactly the kind of stuff I'd happily pay a big premium to let someone else do - and most importantly - worry about.
• FrankyHollywood 10y ago
  A while ago I read the biography of Anton Philips. He described a board meeting where they decided to make the lifetime of a light bulb 1000 hours instead of 5000. So they actually decided to make their product less good, only to get more (short term?) profit. (some) people are never satisfied, always want more more more...
  • amelius 10y ago
    Wouldn't the free market solve this automatically?
    • FrankyHollywood 10y ago
      well, Philips still is a billion dollar company today :) I guess it depends on the market, if 'longest lasting bulbs' are a selling point, you lose the race. However, if all other manifactures like your business model they will follow. Marketing is also important. Companies with best advertising often sell more than companies with the best products.
    • 317070 10y ago
      Basically, that question is irrelevant. If we observe that the current market is not solving this automatically, the question whether a more abstract version of the current market will solve it is kind of moot. Either that, or we currently do not have a free market in the household appliance sector. The reason it is not being solved by the free market, is that a free market is never the best option for all actors inside this market. There is always a group of actors who gains by having the market less free. So they will actively try to make the market less free by using their freedom in this free market. In this case, household appliance manufacturers formed an alliance in that they all dropped on quality, and used obfuscation methods to make sure they cannot be punished by the consumer (who does not know who actually manufacturers which product), combined with a reduction in the number of manufacturers through series of acquisitions. Such oligopoly formation can be done without problem through mediation by independent consultancy companies, who go give the same presentations to all manufacturers.
    • ptha 10y ago
• redsummer 10y ago
  A good rule is just to buy Miele or high-end Bosch. Make sure it's made in Germany and sold in the German market. They have higher standards. I don't know if this is true for ovens, but with other appliances it's a good rule to follow. I can see an opening for Trump here. If he wants the US to be known for high quality, long-lasting products, he could differentiate US products from cheap and crappy Far East stuff. There is clearly a demand.
  • robin_reala 10y ago
    How could Trump do anything about that?
    • lawless123 10y ago
      He's going to Make Appliances Great Again! Don't ask for a plan though..
    • redsummer 10y ago
      I doubt if he is, but it would be great if he did. What with his focus on manufacturing.
    • revo13 10y ago
      This is a very un-republican thing to do, but as another poster mentioned, you could apply a tax/penalty/whatever to companies when their products are accepted into landfill sites. That would get passed on to consumers until it was cheaper to simply keep them out of landfills. Presumably your quality would go up in order to keep more of the profits of selling the units in the first place. Not sure it would work in reality, but an interesting idea that is actionable by the government. EDIT: typo
  • ff10 10y ago
    Miele, Neff, Liebherr, this is my go to when I plan to keep stuff for a decade or more. There's even a few more smaller high end brands from Germany. I bought a used Miele Toploader from the 90s. Miele says new ones will be good for about 20 years. So I probably have some more years with that one. Plus timeless, simple design, exceptional quality and very good cleaning performance. Note that I live in Germany. When I looked at Miele vacuum prices in a Macy's in California I had to choke a little.
• wjnc 10y ago
  My Whirlpool dryer and washing machine lasted 10 and 12 years respectively. Few fixes in the last few years, but still in pretty strong condition. What made me switch was the realisation that just the energy savings going from energy label A to A+++ (that's a EU-label) would make them pay themselves back in about 4 years. So Total Cost of Ownership is what matters, not service duration. I totally agree that 'cradle to cradle' shouldn't just be some hipster word. In the EU we pay to have any appliance recycled. Hopefully that is done ambitiously.
• septimus111 10y ago
  The same thing is true with other categories of stuff. I was surprised to learn a few years ago that 'old' clothes and shoes can last 20 years and in some cases longer.
• animal531 10y ago
  My parents bought me a microwave when I started studying, and I used it for about 22 years until the mechanical knob on the front end came loose. It was a great piece of kit. I then decided to buy a new one and got a flashy Samsung. It microwaves at best poorly, the food in the center will still be cold by the time the food on the edges of the plate will start to burn you.
• sddfd 10y ago
  OK, everyone hates bad quality, I can relate. But `shortevity` also has advantages: If most of the consumers would not buy new phones every 2 years, innovation cycles would be even slower. The challenge is to deal with the waste responsibly: Recycle resources and use renewable energy.
  • vatotemking 10y ago
    Interesting viewpoint. Perhaps we should make recycling profitable for companies. Right now, It probably cost more to recycle vs making a product from scratch.
• redsummer 10y ago
  Oldest fridge, 1928 GE - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357737/Oldest-known-fridge-America-chillin-85-years-later.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357737/Oldest-known... Longest mileage, 1966 Volvo P1800 - http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/g121/million-mile-club-the-worlds-longest-lived-cars/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/g121/million-mile-club-... I'm sure there are lots of other examples. Simple, mechanical, solidly built. No gimmicks.
• mjgoins 10y ago
  When I went to the first semester of engineering school at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, there was a class called Engineering Professional Development 160: Introduction to Engineering. One of the early class sessions was a lecture from a guy at a power tool company, making some kind of jigsaw or handheld cutting tool. He explicitly told us, paraphrasing, "You don't want to make your product too reliable, because people won't buy more of them, and you won't make as much money". I was horrified, literally looked around at my classmates to see how horrified they would be, none of them were. I ended up majoring in philosophy. Of course this site is dedicated to the idea he expressed, so I am not looking for agreement here, just relaying what I consider an interesting historical fact.
  • BoorishBears 10y ago
    This anecdote seems to be crafted to imply that exchange is why you didn't major in engineering, but it doesn't outright say that. Did you really not major in engineering over that exchange with your class?
  • 2T1Qka0rEiPr 10y ago
    Whilst this is clearly how no company should aspire to be, it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product. The outcome is planned obsolescence as highlighted in this article. As the article also points out, not only does this damage us economically, it also damages use environmentally. It should be the place of Government to ensure that these externalities are re-addressed (e.g. by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill), and for us the citizens to lobby them to do so.
    • lr4444lr 10y ago
      Heaven forbid said company should use that quality to build their brand reputation, charge more to funnel back into R&D to create another product to fulfill a different consumer need, grow, get more profitable, and continue the virtuous cycle. That'd be, like, justifying capitalism or something.
• r0brodz 10y ago
  I understand the concept of the lasting good equipment. I understand how more efficiency, electric and mechanical, are good for an overall solution. That's all great and good yet all the optimizations in the world and you're efficient technology are still creating tons of fn trash. Lets fix that.
• vatotemking 10y ago
  Now we have exploitable IoT appliances that can brick on the next update. But really, who the heck needs to check facebook on their fridge?
• skyisblue 10y ago
  We've got a 30 year old National microwave that's still going strong, haven't had to service it once.
  • IshKebab 10y ago
    I also have a very old microwave that is still working perfectly. My theory is that early products are over-engineered because they haven't had time to do cost reduction. In the beginning time-to-market is more important than squeezing every gram of profit out of your manufacturing chain by making parts as thin as possible, using snap fittings instead of screws, optimising for specified lifetimes and so on.
• hodder 10y ago
  What are the chances YC accepts a new dishwasher company into the program. I've taken apart and put together a ton of them now and have some interesting and simple ideas to make them last longer and work bettter.
• skywhopper 10y ago
  I seriously doubt a real study of appliance reliability over the past 70 years would show that the stuff sold in the 50s is actually more reliable or longer-lasting than the stuff sold today. Sure, you can find appliances that old that still work fine, but you don't see the ones that broke down after a year or two--they were junked decades ago and forgotten about. Since you can't grow the supply of working 50-year-old fridges, you are tautologically going to see far, far more appliances that are 10 years old or less failing, because there are far more such appliances. In any case, I also guarantee that most of the junked appliances people throw out either still work fine, or are repairable. But there are other factors at work. A new kitchen remodel will often include new appliances. Is it wasteful? Sure. But it doesn't have anything to do with the reliability of older appliances. As for repairs, labor costs have increased far faster than the cost of new appliances, so repairs are not always the better economic decision. Then add in large gains in efficiency of newer appliances, and utility savings _alone_ often make it worthwhile to junk a working appliance in favor or something newer. I'm not trying to defend reliability of modern appliances, but this article way overstates the reliability and manufacturing quality of older ones, while ignoring a lot of other factors at play.
  • ainiriand 10y ago
    In the URSS the appliances had a mandatory 25 year warranty. So, it makes sense to me...
    • Cthulhu_ 10y ago
      In Europe it's 3 years minimum for electronics - conflicting with a lot of electronics' manufacturers who want to do 1 year at best. It's not a lot, but better than nothing. I'm reading on an official site that it's two years, which I guess is for all products, not just electronics. Electronics are the kind of things that really shouldn't be expiring. They do though, and for most cheap electronics it's on purpose - they install underrated condensors that will start to leak shortly after the mandatory warranty expires. I have an old LCD monitor which stopped working, but my dad's handy with a soldering iron, replaced the leaking condensors and it's lived for twice as long already with no signs of giving up any time soon. I'd rather want to replace a monitor because there's better and more modern alternatives, than have to because of leaky condensors / planned obsolescence.
• rufusroflpunch 10y ago
  "Planned obsolesence" is nothing more than a conspiracy theory always presented without any proof.
• ecopoesis 10y ago
  Modern appliances are crap because that's all consumers will pay for. For example, if you want a washer that could double as a main battle tank, get a Speed Queen. The only problem is it costs twice what a name brand one does at a big box store. In real dollars, appliances have gotten much cheaper. I found a Sears catalog from 1960 that had a refrigerator for $359. According to the inflation calculator I found, that's $2948.10 today. The descendent of the 1960 Kenmore is $429 on sears.com today, and manages to have twice the capacity.
• Yizahi 10y ago
  My anecdotal experience (and my parents and grandparents) tells me that: a) devices back them broke about the same and had similar lifespans. Yes, some devices lasted for a long time but I suspect that it is just a survivor bias. b) there were less devices overall (no dishwashers for example), they were harder to get and more valuable. c) they didn't have any modern electronics. All failures were mechanical, while today they are electronic (and usually non-reparable, only replaceable). d) some of the devices were built using post-war production lines, e.g. ex-military electric motors, heavy metal bodies etc. e) those devices were not even closely comparable to today's. Vacuum cleaners that were a metal body and a motor basically. Washing machine for <6kg that was twice as big. Fridges that couldn't keep temperature, had no proper ventilation, multi-zones or sound proofing. Rubber elements that degraded faster than now. The list is endless really. tl;dr Article paints old tech as better overall which is maybe applicable to top models in some countries and still not even close. But he is right of course and we do need to strive for more durable devices.
  • fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
    >c) they didn't have any modern electronics. All failures were mechanical, while today they are electronic (and usually non-reparable, only replaceable). I used to worry about this, but we bought a high efficiency front loader anyway. After 4 years we've replaced: Door gasket - ~$80, and Pump - ~$50. Once, the front control panel started misbehaving and I thought for sure the machine was done for. But I looked and found that a wire harness had worked its way loose, and one of the wires was rubbed almost in two. I repaired the wire and the machine returned to normal. My opinion is that parts are generally available, and that these machines are as simple to repair as any older machine.
• rm_dash_rf 10y ago
  I had an LG fridge stop working and the reason was that a fuse blew on the circuit board. A cheap $2 fuse. It was not replaceable. I was lucky that I was able to un-solder it and replace it but otherwise you have to replace the entire board ($150). If you are not that handy you then have to pay something to do all this for you. Now you are talking $300+. Unbelievable.
  • babygoat 10y ago
    My blood is boiling from thinking about soldering a fuse to a circuit board.
• flour_power 10y ago
  do people read the articles before commenting?
• nabla9 10y ago
  In the 50's median person might have spent 100-200 hours of his work time to pay for a appliance that today costs only 10-15 hours of work today and consumes much less energy. If you are willing to spend similar sums of money and buy items from luxury or industrial markets, you might still get the similar quality and get the modern energy efficiency. Not many people are willing to spend that money for their kitchen.
• Neliquat 10y ago
  Good timing. Bought a 400 tv for 10 at a garage sale. Was gonna be tossed. I replaced a single smd fuse, watching it now.
• lojack 10y ago
  Your evidence is still an anecdote, it just involves a couple more people. Still potentially involves some amount of confirmation bias. It stops being anecdotal when it moves away from your personal experience (including the anecdotal experience of your friends) and moves towards an actual scientific study. For Reference: > Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes, i.e., evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony.
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13913523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13913523 and marked it off-topic.
• matt_morgan 10y ago
  60 years ago, most people didn't have large appliances. Growth came from actual growth. You could build reliable appliances and still sell new ones. Today, most new sales come from replacement. I'm guessing, I didn't look this up, but I bet it's true. Like the author said, there are a million brands but only a few manufacturers. Consumers can't buy based on reliability, even if they want to.
• revo13 10y ago
  Apply this to gas grills as well. Spend $500 at Lowes/HomeDepot and you will have a pile of rust a few years later. At least in the grill industry (for now) you can still choose to spend higher $$ to get much better quality. An AOG (http://www.aoggrill.com/ http://www.aoggrill.com/) will cost you 3-4x the Lowes grill, but it is 100% stainless steel with a 10yr full warranty. That thing will outlive me. Unfortunately you won't find these at your Big Boxes. You have to go to a smaller specialty grill store.
  • LordKano 10y ago
    I bought a $250 grill at Walmart 8 1/2 years ago. I still have that grill but I think I'll only get one more summer out of it. I have had to replace burners and heat shields twice but it still works. Every part that isn't stainless steel is rusting away but fortunately, the internals can be replaced on the cheap.
    • revo13 10y ago
      This is true that you can buy replacement parts. I did that a couple of times with my previous Lowes grill. I find those parts are a race to the bottom as well though in terms of the metal quality. I just got tired of replacing/rebuilding/etc. I found my AOG on clearance at a local shop for $1k.
      • LordKano 10y ago
        Those grills look great and at $1k it would be tempting but the $2k grills are just out of the question for me.
        • revo13 10y ago
          Yea. Can't say I would have been in the market at $2k+. I admittedly got lucky on mine.
• bmcusick 10y ago
  The Korean car companies really broke into the market by providing unheard of warranties on their powertrains. I'd love to see a new entrant to the white goods market try something similar. Guaranteed to last 10+ years; engineered for maximum reparability at minimum cost. The trick would be to market the total cost of ownership, rather than the sticker price at the store. They already do that with electricity consumption, but don't for repairs and warranties.
• csense 10y ago
  I had no idea this was a pitch for a startup until the very end. Well played.
• pif 10y ago
  "Cheap" rather than "good": that's the switch that ruined it all!
• zackbloom 10y ago
  I think people saying this is done to intentionally build low quality things which have to be replaced are wrong. I also think people who think appliances weren't better in the 50s are wrong. This is optimization, plain and simple. The appliance manufacturers have figured out EXACTLY how think metal needs to be, how well painted, etc to create a product which will sell. If you want them to change their equation, consumers will need to change how they decide what to buy. Fortunately technology is making it easier for us to read reviews and get more information. Hopefully we will soon live in a world where manufacturers are obligated to get good reviews five and ten years after their appliance is sold. That said, the technique of folding a brand and spinning up a new one is a great way to bypass these consequences.
  • ctrl-j 10y ago
    > Hopefully we will soon live in a world where manufacturers are obligated to get good reviews five and ten years after their appliance is sold. I don't know of a product I have recently bought that is the same model that was sold 5-10 years ago. When I'm looking up a product to buy, I look for the model I'm intending to buy. Likewise, when I'm asked for a review, it's from a product the company is currently marketing. I focus my dollars on companies with better customer service records, but beyond that, how should I "encourage" companies that build things to last? Especially when few companies build with that mentality? Even typical "built-to-last" brands like craftsman and kitchen-aid can no longer be trusted to not fall apart. The only thing I can think to really kick-start better quality, is to enforce mandatory a 5-year (or 10-year?) warranty.
• fapjacks 10y ago
  The crap longevity of everything (cars, appliances, clothes, phones, computers) fucking infuriates me more than anything else.
• known 10y ago
  Replace, not repair is the new business model;
• zawaideh 10y ago
  I wonder if a good solution is to introduce a landfill fee on these companies for each product they manufacture that makes it to the landfill and keep a public registry for each brand. This way there is an incentive to make longer lasting products from both a financial and brand reputation perspective.
• wnevets 10y ago
  Just some of the amazing benefits of a barely regulated free market, oh boy!
• cr0sh 10y ago
  For appliances, my wife and I have started to purchase commercial products. Right now, all we have is a microwave, but we were tired of constantly having to purchase a new microwave every 5 years or so, as things broke on it. Our previous microwave, for instance, still worked ok (ie - it heated up food ok), but the turntable lazy-suzan thing had paint problems: the rollers of the lazy-suzan, where it fit in the track, chipped and "grinded" the paint, so there were paint particles and fragments under the glass surface. We'd wipe it out, but more would occur. Eventually, it wore a "rut" (no more paint chip issues), but then it started rusting from food moisture. So we dumped a bunch of money (close to $300.00) into a commercial microwave. One knob, 6 minutes max, high power only. Honestly, it works perfectly, easy wipe-out interior surface, no turntable, but heats evenly without turning the food. The only downside with it (as with all commercial kitchen appliances) is that it is stainless steel only (we have a "white appliance" kitchen. Our next purchase will likely be a commercial refrigerator, and a replacement freezer. We're going with only a refrigerator in our kitchen, and replacing a small chest freezer in our garage with an upright. It's going to cost a helluva penny to do this, but considering how much a new consumer side-by-side costs anyhow, it should be worth it in the long run. The only downsides we have found (so far) are that a) commercial refrigeration units are much taller than consumer units, and we're having problems finding one that will fit into our current space, b) commercial units, if used in a home, usually will void the warranty, c) commercial units need commercial repair service, which is much more expensive in parts/labor when it does happen. But we thought we'd give it a shot. Our current side-by-side works ok (mainly - water dispenser and ice maker don't work anymore), and it has worked well for 15 years now (and was bought used when we got it). Part of me wonders, after reading this story, if it might be better to have it repaired instead. We've already seen prices for new units, and they are crazy expensive for what you get. Plus, most of them don't fit in our current space; they seem to be made for new houses, which have taller ceilings, and no overhead cabinet above the fridge area - unlike our 1970s ranch-style home (Why do we live in such an older home? For starter's, we live below our means, because it provides a bit of insurance against uncertain problems. We also wanted a house without an HOA - new houses where we live, without HOAs, tend to be custom construction, if you are lucky, and that was beyond our means at the time for our first house. Lastly, we wanted block construction, copper piping and electric, and better construction - houses today are built so damn cheaply). Hopefully whatever we decide will work out in the end. But so far, we wouldn't change our decision on our microwave (ours is basically the same one used in much of restaurant service - Sharp and Amana make the majority of these).
• vanderZwan 10y ago
  I wonder if switching to a model of renting appliances wouldn't improve this situation? If I rent out an appliance I want my hardware to last, and I have an incentive for the hardware to be good at the same time or I might lose customers to someone else.
  • zymhan 10y ago
    You mean turning appliance manufacturers into washing-machine fleet operators? Why would they do that to themselves? Otherwise, there are already private companies that buy appliances and rent them out to consumers. They maybe be affordable in the short term, but will cost you much more in the 2+ year outlook.
• vanderZwan 10y ago
  I wonder if switching to a model of renting appliances wouldn't improve this situation? If I rent out an appliance I want my hardware to last, and I have an incentive for the hardware to be good at the same time or I might lose customers to someone else.
• test6554 10y ago
  All the patents from 30+ years ago have surely expired. What's to stop someone from creating a kickstarter to recreate all the CAD files/designs for these older machines and open source them. The control system could even be modular so that you could go with an analog system, or swap it out with a raspberry PI controlled system. With those designs out there, surely someone could manufacture and sell these parts and make a good chunk of money.
• crazygringo 10y ago
  But they're cheaper, by something like 75% (and even more when you take energy efficiency into account). [1] For people who move every few years, whose requirements change (from solo to 4-person family), and so on, the current situation is pretty ideal. Spend less money, change models more frequently to fit your changing needs, and often it's even cheaper to buy a new one than to get it fixed -- which for consumers is amazing! (Because repair costs certainly aren't getting cheaper.) Of course, the negative externalities on the environment are pretty clear and potentially horrific. As well as what it means for cultural values where more and more things are disposable. But that's the answer, that's why they don't last 50 years -- because consumers actually prefer something that lasts only a few years at 25% of the price. [1] http://www.aei.org/publication/the-good-old-days-are-now-todays-home-appliances-are-cheaper-better-and-more-energy-efficient-than-ever-before/ http://www.aei.org/publication/the-good-old-days-are-now-tod...
  • sqeaky 10y ago
    This is so I don't see why people ignore. I bet you can go buy high end appliances that will last 50 years. But would anyone want to be using it in 50 years?
    • sangnoir 10y ago
      > But would anyone want to be using it in 50 years? I would happily use a washing machine, dishwasher or fridge that is 50 years old. The only tech advances related to those gadgets that would concern me are CFCs in the refrigerant.
      • skykooler 10y ago
        Which in and of itself is not a problem until the refrigerator finally needs to be disposed of.
      • majormajor 10y ago
        Eh. When I moved from an apartment with a ~30 year old dishwasher to one with a new one, I was pretty startled by how much cleaner it got my dishes when I didn't pre-rinse them as much as I used to have to.
• kentosi 10y ago
  I'm very glad I read this article. I once heard a handyman say that "they don't build 'em like they used to" about my parents' old washing machine. Now I can see that this isn't just anecdotal nostalgia.
• orasis 10y ago
  Survivorship bias may also explain a big part of this.
• peterbonney 10y ago
  TL;DR summary: Old appliances must have been better because some old appliances still exist and the author doesn't understand selection bias.
• Markoff 10y ago
  I dunno, my father own Skandiluxe fridge for 15 or more years and only problem are doors slightly leaning on one side which could be resolved by switching their position. Mother has Bosch which has zero problems. Same goes for father's Electrolux washing machine with little issues working also around 15 years. And when i think about it there has been very few failures in anything we buy and if it happens it's usually get fast during warranty period and then after fixing it last, father's plasma LG had​ initially some problem but after fixing works more than ten years. So i can't really share the sentiment about such poor quality of appliances or electronics. Also pretty much every Samsung or LG washing machine i see in promotion has 10 years warranty on engine, though i would be afraid about electronics.
  • jamaicahest 10y ago
    > Also pretty much every Samsung or LG washing machine i see in promotion has 10 years warranty on engine, though i would be afraid about electronics. So if the engine breaks, they will fix it. But what if the engine works fine, but the lid is filled with rust? Who is going to use a washing machine that looks like it could drop pieces of rust into the dirty clothes at any given time. And since the lid is not covored by the 10 year warranty, you can either throw out the whole machine or pay to get the lid repainted.
• ccanassa 10y ago
  Isn't that simply a case of survivorship bias? When people see an old tool or appliance that's still working they usually come to the conclusion that old stuff is better, but they fail to realise that for each surviving appliance there was probably many others that didn't pass the test of time due to bad quality or flaws in design.
• icbm504 10y ago
  Bought a Maytag washer+dryer more than 20 years ago before it was bought out by Whirlpool. Occasional minor fixes, but both still work great. So happy we bought them. I remember the store we bought them at had this display comparing "maytag parts" vs. "competitors parts" showing that maytags parts were clearly better. Stuff like springs, screws, etcs. I think that "6. How can we change things..." is avoiding the elephant in the room. This looks systemic. This is exactly why laws were written against monopolies and trusts. I have no idea how DoJ decides to prosecute a trust/monopoly. How does that work?