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Right, no one would ever make products intentionally worse as part of creeping modernism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org

Right, no one would ever make products intentionally worse as part of creeping modernism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel No one would ever, for economic reasons, plan (or just allow) for the lifespan of their products to decrease. http://resource.co/article/lifetimes-household-appliances-becoming-shorter-10888 http://resource.co/article/lifetimes-household-appliances-be... Technology is always getting better! The old timers who almost universally report this phenomenon just don't know enough arm chair statistics. Delusional, basically. If a study were done, or a set of studies, say between changes in average appliance lifespan between 1993 and 2007, these could never show a dramatic decrease in the average lifespan of most appliance categories. 1993 NAHB results http://www.metrohome.us/information_kit_files/life.pdf http://www.metrohome.us/information_kit_files/life.pdf 2007 NAHB results https://www.interstatebrick.com/sites/default/files/library/nahb20study20of20life20expectancy20of20home20components.pdf https://www.interstatebrick.com/sites/default/files/library/...

wslh 10y ago
My experience, which is not anecdotical and is shared with friends, say the same. I just change a refrigerator bought less than 12 years ago and I am changing a washing machine with the same age. My family is using the same refrigerator for more than 30 years.
- ben_pr 10y ago
  I just changed a refrigerator, stove is basically dead, both 8 years old, Whirlpool brand. My Mom is still using the same appliances from when I was a kid. Nearly every family member I have says the same thing, new stuff lasts about 8 - 10 years and why can't we just get one like Mom's that will last 35+ years. My bosh dishwasher runs like new and is 8 years old.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    first mistake - whirlpool, objectively and subjectively one of the crappier appliances brand. had full kitchen of them in my previous flat, from nearly beginning every single one of them showed minor or not-so-minor issues. never ever again.
  - unpixer 10y ago
    Counter-anecdote: my Bosch dishwasher lasted barely six years before the impeller motor failed.
- LordKano 10y ago
  My grandfather has a beer refrigerator in his basement that was my uncle's college dorm refrigerator back in the 1980s. It has been in near constant operation for all of that time. I don't think anyone honestly expects that an inexpensive appliance bought today might still be working 35 years from now.
valarauca1 10y ago
Or in 2002 when DRAM manufactures did the same thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing
cholantesh 10y ago
>Technology is always getting better! >The old timers who almost universally report this phenomenon just don't know enough arm chair statistics. Delusional, basically. Most all the links that you've referenced do acknowledge the role of perceived obsolescence, ie, replacement of an appliance before its useful life is up. That, along with selection bias and the absence of solid data from the 50s-70s, are important factors that are unaccounted for. Snark won't change that.
- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  I presented data that appliance lifespans are getting shorter, and you're somehow convinced its because people are throwing them away before their time. Okay, why? Selection/survivorship bias isn't something you just get to make up... it's also not a smart guess, in this case, because the common anecdotes don't make the mistake of saying "oh, most of these washers are new, therefore old washers must suck." That would be selection bias, but no one is saying that, as far as I can tell. They are saying, the average age of appliances at replacement is decreasing over time. Selection bias would not explain that. Now the GP, whose train of thought you seem to relate to very closely here, suggested -- without evidence -- that labor costs have gone up, explaining why you both seem to think people simply throw away good appliances now, instead of repairing them. The problem is that real labor costs have been stagnant for middle class workers (i.e. appliance repair people) during the period for which I actually cited data. So it's very unlikely that would be the explanation. Can you generate another explanation for why people would throw away good appliances now?
  - cornholio 10y ago
    The salary of blue collar workers adjusted to inflation have stagnated. But when compared with the price of the appliances themselves, it is much higher than it was in the 50s. A washing machine was an investment and something the family planned and financed though an easy payment plan, not something you piked up at the supermarket with grocery money. The appliances themselves were designed and expected to be repaired, just like a car or is today. Meanwhile, the skill set required to fix an appliance has increased beyond blue collar level (complex automation, sensors, switching power supplies and motor control) while the large diversity of brands and technical solutions requires specialized parts which are rare and thus expensive due to simple economics. A vicious cycle is enforced where repairs become expensive relative to the appliance cost, less people perform them, therefore it does not pay to design for repair because it will make your appliance more expensive, therefore it becomes even harder to repair - so even less people do it. The reliability has indeed gone down and it has a detrimental effect on the environment. But it's not a conspiracy, it's basic economics in an consumerist environment. There is no evidence for a cartel of planned obsolescence. The appliances are build cheaply enough to last just enough for the average life consumers expect, during which they are usually covered under warranty. People don't want refrigerators that last a life time, they want refrigerators cheap enough so they can replace them every 5 years. They might say otherwise but vote with their wallets for just that. You might not be in that category, me neither, but we are a but a statistical blimp in the market, not enough to induce manufacturers to change this behavior. To illustrate the point further, take the car industry. The reliability, performance, affordability and eco-friendliness of cars have all improved dramatically form the 50s, despite similar consolidation and reduction in competition. Why is that ? Because cars are expensive, people expect them to be repairable and function reliably for decades.
cwbrandsma 10y ago
And if I read your comment I'm led to believe there is a mass conspiracy by every single manufacturer on earth to deliberately make their products worse. If you make a product, you MUST be trying to make it worse so you can sell more, right? Isn't that exactly what you saying here. After all, if any single manufacturer does this, then all of them must, because they are all obviously in collusion. The world isn't big enough for two things to be true at the same time.
- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  >> Isn't that exactly what you saying here. No, that's not what I'm saying. "Every single manufacturer" does not need to coordinate for this kind of problem to exist. Otherwise, it the numerous instances of this kind of collusion which have actually been outed, over the years, would not have been possible. All that's necessary is is insufficient competition in a particular sector. We see this increasingly in the industrialized, Western world, where just a few megacorps handle almost all of the business, much more so than in the past. I would attribute this to largely to less free markets, which reduces competitive forces that would normally prevent this sort of thing. Large corporations are often allowed to buy influence, dictate legislation, that create barriers to entry in the very markets where one sees this kind of dysfunction. Less cynically, one can also look to industries with rising capital costs, e.g. if it takes super expensive R&D to compete in a market you might see just a few large firms. Once there are just a few firms in a particular sector, it's tempting to form a cartel. But it's not necessary to explicitly collude in order to be less responsive to competitive forces, or even to communicate. If you read the OP's article you may have noticed that the author points out the diminishing number of firms in the appliance business. >> The world isn't big enough for two things to be true at the same time. No a particular market sector isn't big enough for these two things to be true at the same time. One "honest"/driven competitor will largely rout out such bad behavior, which I think is a more proper statement of your core insight here. So the question we should be asking ourselves is, why can't one good competitor enter the marketplace for washing machines in today's climate, e.g. a significant market share selling 30-year washing machines, since that's clearly possible?
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
The thing about the lightbulb collusion is that it's exceptional for being one of the only examples of such collusion that's verified. I don't doubt it exists in some cases, but if it were as ubiquitous as many say, I'd suspect to find evidence of other conspiracies. Many other industries also lack a centralized organization (one ostensibly for standardization) to facilitate such a conspiracy. Overall I just find the argument very weak, especially in the face of normal market forces and cost-competition being sufficient to explain much of the observed changes. I do agree that appliances likely represent a real decline in durability over the past couple decades.
- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  This is incorrect... there are many examples, the light bulb is just the best documented, partly because of it's historical timing. Another poster mentioned the DRAM case, this is one of a fairly good number of examples of collusion. When you are talking about a type of behavior that people will generally go to good lengths to keep under wraps, a better conclusion would be that the known cases are a fraction of the actual cases. If we had something closer to perfect competition there would a lot less of this... but we don't. Many of the cases where antitrust action has been deemed necessary by governments were IMO caused by government interventions in the first place.
sunnykgupta 10y ago
Exhaust Fans have gone from 20 years to 10 years. I wonder what caused this ;)

wslh 10y ago

My experience, which is not anecdotical and is shared with friends, say the same. I just change a refrigerator bought less than 12 years ago and I am changing a washing machine with the same age. My family is using the same refrigerator for more than 30 years.

ben_pr 10y ago
I just changed a refrigerator, stove is basically dead, both 8 years old, Whirlpool brand. My Mom is still using the same appliances from when I was a kid. Nearly every family member I have says the same thing, new stuff lasts about 8 - 10 years and why can't we just get one like Mom's that will last 35+ years. My bosh dishwasher runs like new and is 8 years old.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  first mistake - whirlpool, objectively and subjectively one of the crappier appliances brand. had full kitchen of them in my previous flat, from nearly beginning every single one of them showed minor or not-so-minor issues. never ever again.
- unpixer 10y ago
  Counter-anecdote: my Bosch dishwasher lasted barely six years before the impeller motor failed.
LordKano 10y ago
My grandfather has a beer refrigerator in his basement that was my uncle's college dorm refrigerator back in the 1980s. It has been in near constant operation for all of that time. I don't think anyone honestly expects that an inexpensive appliance bought today might still be working 35 years from now.

valarauca1 10y ago

Or in 2002 when DRAM manufactures did the same thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

cholantesh 10y ago

>Technology is always getting better! >The old timers who almost universally report this phenomenon just don't know enough arm chair statistics. Delusional, basically. Most all the links that you've referenced do acknowledge the role of perceived obsolescence, ie, replacement of an appliance before its useful life is up. That, along with selection bias and the absence of solid data from the 50s-70s, are important factors that are unaccounted for. Snark won't change that.

threepipeproblm 10y ago
I presented data that appliance lifespans are getting shorter, and you're somehow convinced its because people are throwing them away before their time. Okay, why? Selection/survivorship bias isn't something you just get to make up... it's also not a smart guess, in this case, because the common anecdotes don't make the mistake of saying "oh, most of these washers are new, therefore old washers must suck." That would be selection bias, but no one is saying that, as far as I can tell. They are saying, the average age of appliances at replacement is decreasing over time. Selection bias would not explain that. Now the GP, whose train of thought you seem to relate to very closely here, suggested -- without evidence -- that labor costs have gone up, explaining why you both seem to think people simply throw away good appliances now, instead of repairing them. The problem is that real labor costs have been stagnant for middle class workers (i.e. appliance repair people) during the period for which I actually cited data. So it's very unlikely that would be the explanation. Can you generate another explanation for why people would throw away good appliances now?
- cornholio 10y ago
  The salary of blue collar workers adjusted to inflation have stagnated. But when compared with the price of the appliances themselves, it is much higher than it was in the 50s. A washing machine was an investment and something the family planned and financed though an easy payment plan, not something you piked up at the supermarket with grocery money. The appliances themselves were designed and expected to be repaired, just like a car or is today. Meanwhile, the skill set required to fix an appliance has increased beyond blue collar level (complex automation, sensors, switching power supplies and motor control) while the large diversity of brands and technical solutions requires specialized parts which are rare and thus expensive due to simple economics. A vicious cycle is enforced where repairs become expensive relative to the appliance cost, less people perform them, therefore it does not pay to design for repair because it will make your appliance more expensive, therefore it becomes even harder to repair - so even less people do it. The reliability has indeed gone down and it has a detrimental effect on the environment. But it's not a conspiracy, it's basic economics in an consumerist environment. There is no evidence for a cartel of planned obsolescence. The appliances are build cheaply enough to last just enough for the average life consumers expect, during which they are usually covered under warranty. People don't want refrigerators that last a life time, they want refrigerators cheap enough so they can replace them every 5 years. They might say otherwise but vote with their wallets for just that. You might not be in that category, me neither, but we are a but a statistical blimp in the market, not enough to induce manufacturers to change this behavior. To illustrate the point further, take the car industry. The reliability, performance, affordability and eco-friendliness of cars have all improved dramatically form the 50s, despite similar consolidation and reduction in competition. Why is that ? Because cars are expensive, people expect them to be repairable and function reliably for decades.

cwbrandsma 10y ago

And if I read your comment I'm led to believe there is a mass conspiracy by every single manufacturer on earth to deliberately make their products worse. If you make a product, you MUST be trying to make it worse so you can sell more, right? Isn't that exactly what you saying here. After all, if any single manufacturer does this, then all of them must, because they are all obviously in collusion. The world isn't big enough for two things to be true at the same time.

threepipeproblm 10y ago
>> Isn't that exactly what you saying here. No, that's not what I'm saying. "Every single manufacturer" does not need to coordinate for this kind of problem to exist. Otherwise, it the numerous instances of this kind of collusion which have actually been outed, over the years, would not have been possible. All that's necessary is is insufficient competition in a particular sector. We see this increasingly in the industrialized, Western world, where just a few megacorps handle almost all of the business, much more so than in the past. I would attribute this to largely to less free markets, which reduces competitive forces that would normally prevent this sort of thing. Large corporations are often allowed to buy influence, dictate legislation, that create barriers to entry in the very markets where one sees this kind of dysfunction. Less cynically, one can also look to industries with rising capital costs, e.g. if it takes super expensive R&D to compete in a market you might see just a few large firms. Once there are just a few firms in a particular sector, it's tempting to form a cartel. But it's not necessary to explicitly collude in order to be less responsive to competitive forces, or even to communicate. If you read the OP's article you may have noticed that the author points out the diminishing number of firms in the appliance business. >> The world isn't big enough for two things to be true at the same time. No a particular market sector isn't big enough for these two things to be true at the same time. One "honest"/driven competitor will largely rout out such bad behavior, which I think is a more proper statement of your core insight here. So the question we should be asking ourselves is, why can't one good competitor enter the marketplace for washing machines in today's climate, e.g. a significant market share selling 30-year washing machines, since that's clearly possible?

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago

The thing about the lightbulb collusion is that it's exceptional for being one of the only examples of such collusion that's verified. I don't doubt it exists in some cases, but if it were as ubiquitous as many say, I'd suspect to find evidence of other conspiracies. Many other industries also lack a centralized organization (one ostensibly for standardization) to facilitate such a conspiracy. Overall I just find the argument very weak, especially in the face of normal market forces and cost-competition being sufficient to explain much of the observed changes. I do agree that appliances likely represent a real decline in durability over the past couple decades.

threepipeproblm 10y ago
This is incorrect... there are many examples, the light bulb is just the best documented, partly because of it's historical timing. Another poster mentioned the DRAM case, this is one of a fairly good number of examples of collusion. When you are talking about a type of behavior that people will generally go to good lengths to keep under wraps, a better conclusion would be that the known cases are a fraction of the actual cases. If we had something closer to perfect competition there would a lot less of this... but we don't. Many of the cases where antitrust action has been deemed necessary by governments were IMO caused by government interventions in the first place.

sunnykgupta 10y ago

Exhaust Fans have gone from 20 years to 10 years. I wonder what caused this ;)