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>Shout if you have a toaster that you bought less than 5 years ago, that is still working. I think they're supposed to start failing after a year or two. I bou

by carlmr 7y ago

>Shout if you have a toaster that you bought less than 5 years ago, that is still working. I think they're supposed to start failing after a year or two. I bought mine in 2015 and it works. I've never had a toaster fail either. I'm not sure what you're doing with your toasters. One of my water boilers failed (lid hinge broke). My oven recently broke after 12 years. All in all I don't have many problems with appliances breaking. I think it's more survivorship bias to think that old appliances were better. The ones you see surviving are the ones that didn't break a long time ago.

denton-scratch 7y ago
I assume you're not trolling; people don't troll on HN, right? "2015" Cool. That's four years ago. I use toasters to toast stuff. Mainly pre-sliced bread, sometimes bread I sliced by hand. Occasionally bread I baked myself. Srsly - I'm not trying to toast building materials, or bathroom tiles, or garden waste. And I don't know why four years is supposed to be a good lifespan for a device that has no parts that have any kind of failure-plan. I mean, a toaster should last forever. "Survivorship bias": The "ones I see surviving" have all failed, in point of fact. They've all broken down. The only "machines" I own that are older than five years are [1] a ROTEL audio amplifier (cheap == < £120, works well), and [2] Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers (about £400 for the pair, they look nice too). Both of these are more than 20 years old. But my beef isn't about toasters; a cheap toaster costs about EU20, who gives a shit. It's about washing machines and dishwashers. These things cost from EU300 to EU700; and as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how much you are prepared to spend, it's going to fail within five years (and you're going to have to call out a mechanic several times during that interval). There's no "survivorship bias" going on here; the stuff I've referred to that survived belonged to my parents. Dude, they've both died.
- carlmr 7y ago
  No, I wasn't trolling. Maybe I'm just extremely lucky but my current oven is 7 years old and works very well. I'm even an avid baker and cook, so it's not like I underutilize my appliances. My washing machine is currently only 4 years old.

by carlmr 7y ago

denton-scratch 7y ago

I assume you're not trolling; people don't troll on HN, right? "2015" Cool. That's four years ago. I use toasters to toast stuff. Mainly pre-sliced bread, sometimes bread I sliced by hand. Occasionally bread I baked myself. Srsly - I'm not trying to toast building materials, or bathroom tiles, or garden waste. And I don't know why four years is supposed to be a good lifespan for a device that has no parts that have any kind of failure-plan. I mean, a toaster should last forever. "Survivorship bias": The "ones I see surviving" have all failed, in point of fact. They've all broken down. The only "machines" I own that are older than five years are [1] a ROTEL audio amplifier (cheap == < £120, works well), and [2] Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers (about £400 for the pair, they look nice too). Both of these are more than 20 years old. But my beef isn't about toasters; a cheap toaster costs about EU20, who gives a shit. It's about washing machines and dishwashers. These things cost from EU300 to EU700; and as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter how much you are prepared to spend, it's going to fail within five years (and you're going to have to call out a mechanic several times during that interval). There's no "survivorship bias" going on here; the stuff I've referred to that survived belonged to my parents. Dude, they've both died.

carlmr 7y ago
No, I wasn't trolling. Maybe I'm just extremely lucky but my current oven is 7 years old and works very well. I'm even an avid baker and cook, so it's not like I underutilize my appliances. My washing machine is currently only 4 years old.