8 ms·

I feel arguments like this always ignore the fact that buying a toaster in 1950 was a major investment for a family, and if you want to spend $2000 on a high-en

• crooked-v 3y ago
  For me, I think the prime comparison is the KitchenAid stand mixer. You can get a new one that's functionally identical to the classic models that have lasted forever... and it'll run you at least $350 even during a major sale.
  • upon_drumhead 3y ago
    Our few year old kitchen aid has been a nightmare of broken plastic internal parts. I will weep when my mother passes, but I will be taking her mixer and ditching mine.
    • fullstop 3y ago
      Some plastic parts are intentional / sacrificial. Even so, the old mixers were definitely built to last.
      • Gigachad 3y ago
        Plastic gears have lower friction and don't require greasing. They aren't really bad on their own. The problem is you can't find replacement parts when they break.
        • pierat 3y ago
          Get a FDM printer (filament), and get FreeCAD. You'll need digital calipers as well. You can cheap out for $20, or get Mitutoyo's for $200. A scanner's also nice in scanning a geometry thats flat, but not required. Just with a 3d printer and a meager ket, you can replace most current commercial crap in a few hours, and have the replacement as a file you can call on any time. That's how I'm handling this "throw away culture" shit. I'm replicating what I need and throwing away the actual broken bits. Reduce, Reuse, REPAIR, Recycle. (Hint: the manufacturers want you to forget the 4th, hidden R.)
        • slavik81 3y ago
          https://www.kitchenaidparts.com/PartDetail/Gear/WPW10112253/1206513 https://www.kitchenaidparts.com/PartDetail/Gear/WPW10112253/...
        • pixl97 3y ago
          If these things break all the time why isn't someone producing them and selling them?
          • Gigachad 3y ago
            Because they are all custom sizes. And they don't break often. It's like 10 years after purchase where there aren't too many other owners looking for parts and the original company doesn't support it anymore.
    • wredcoll 3y ago
      The irony of course is that they deliberately make some parts out of plastic so they break before the rest of the machine does when you're misstreating it.
      • paleface 3y ago
        I’ve had the same experience, with paper shredders - particularly the Fellowes brand, in the UK - which all have a nylon (possibly some other plastic) cog, somewhere to overheat, then break.
      • samtho 3y ago
        They’re built out of plastic because it’s $0.02 cheaper than a metal part and 99.9% of them last through the warranty period. It’s not deliberate that they make stuff that fails, they build stuff that lasts only as long as it needs.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • slavik81 3y ago
          There's a single nylon gear. The rest are made of metal. They've been using a sacrificial worm gear since the 1960s. KitchenAid switched to all-metal gears on their high-end models fairly recently. In the past, all models had a nylon gear, but the new high-end mixers use electronics to protect the motor.
      • c22 3y ago
        In this case, I think it's so they break before the bones in your hand do.
    • nunez 3y ago
      Not all KitchenAid stand mixers are made the same: https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_to_bake_asked_for_an_electric_whisker/ebs9opn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_... TL;DR: The Pro Line is what you want. These have higher-wattage motors and are made with all-stainless steel. This is important if you mix heavy things like doughs or meats frequently, as these materials tend to stress and shear plastic more easily.
  • scantron4 3y ago
    Nope. My mixer, which I put off buying for years, came out of the box much worse than my mothers 50 year old model. It doesn't actually move slowly at the stir speeds and sounds atrocious.
  • Kon-Peki 3y ago
    KitchenAid sells 4 or 5 different versions of their stand mixers with retail prices ranging from $350 - $1000+. There is a reason for the price difference.
    • nunez 3y ago
      Summary of how they differ: https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_to_bake_asked_for_an_electric_whisker/ebs9opn/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_...
  • pete762 3y ago
    My mom has a Kitchen Aid kettle. That shitty thing breaks all the time forcing my dad to replace some parts of the circuit. (And it's not the users' fault, it's a damn kettle, there's not much you can do wrong except maybe starting it empty which they don't do)
    • LeafItAlone 3y ago
      > breaks all the time forcing my dad to replace some parts of the circuit > there's not much you can do wrong That’s right, which means that the repair jobs are probably failing or incorrect…
• op00to 3y ago
  You can buy a top of the line 1970s toaster for $250 or so. A steal compared to what it cost then!
• fullstop 3y ago
  A toaster in 1951 was $21, which is about $250 today. I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts.
  • asylteltine 3y ago
    I’ve had the same toaster for at least 5 years and it’s fine. It’s… a toaster
    • Gigachad 3y ago
      It's kinda just random luck I'd think. My toaster is about 15 years old now, just a generic Breville one. Still works fine. I imagine anything that would break in a toaster is absolutely trivial to fix, but you are working with mains electricity so in most places you probably need a license to service it. Which just costs more than a brand new toaster.
  • willis936 3y ago
    Toasters are an interesting case study. I went on a tear last year after being fed up with every toaster doing the same bad job. I thought maybe someone made a proper toaster. What I found is that when you pay more the coat of paint gets nicer and maybe there's an MCU+LCD, but the guts and logic are identical. There is no good commercially available toaster today. It's sending a very loud message about how markets operate, and it's not pleasant.
    • ericbarrett 3y ago
      They are probably all made with the same guts from one or two manufacturers. Same with microwaves, nearly every model from $100 to $5000 is made by Midea. (Source: Wirecutter)
      • defen 3y ago
        What can a $5,000 microwave do?
• roenxi 3y ago
  It is also important to be aware that there is huge sampling bias. All the 1950s artefacts that were fragile went to the junk heap a long time ago.
  • jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
    All of the toasters sold today will be in the junk heap within 10 years
    • roenxi 3y ago
      To make such bold claims about all the toasters being produced today you must be quite the toaster enthusiast. Although I admit to some scepticism. Seems likely that some toasters will turn out to be of high quality.
      • jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
        I just prefer buying things that will be durable and last a long time. All I can tell you about toasters these days is that none of those exist so I'm not interested in any of the ones that do.
• marginalia_nu 3y ago
  A lot of the high end stuff is crap too. You get a toaster with wifi and a touch screen and an app instead of something that works.
  • EnigmaFlare 3y ago
    You can buy commercial versions of most machines which will be much better quality and without the stupid touch-screen gimmicks. They might cost 10x as much but that's also how much more domestic ones used to cost back in the day.
    • TheCleric 3y ago
      Yeah, restaurant supply stores are pretty good for utilitarian stuff.
  • MostlyStable 3y ago
    Yeah the problem is legibility. It's easy to see a touchscreen, or to understand a WiFi connection. But it's harder to understand why you should rant an oversized motor that will only be run at half capacity. Features that increase longevity or repairability are considerably less legible to most consumers and therefore get removed first when trying to cut costs.
  • xtracto 3y ago
    The other day I was telling my wife that the next blender I'll get will be a "fuck you" blender. That's the name I gave to an old blender I had 25 years ago when I lived on my own while studying. The blender was an Oster brand and only had an on/off switch. I sold it to a friend when I left that city. Fast forward 25 years, my friend told me that his mom is still using the same blender. No programs, no memories, no modes. Just Off and "fuck you" mode haha. Now I also want a toaster with similar properties. Just let me put my bread slices, click a button and give me my good sliced bread. That's all I need. And hopefully that simplicity makes the gizmo last 20+ years.
    • floren 3y ago
• _vertigo 3y ago
  A toaster in 1950 would probably be closer to $250. Also, I don't like this counterargument because it holds that we should expect to be no better at creating high quality appliances today than in 1950 despite 73 years of advances in engineering and technology.
  • pixl97 3y ago
    A Kenmore toaster in 1951 was $21 new, or $253 now. And if you go buy a commercial toaster it will (likely) last as long as one of those old toasters on average. This said those old appliances could be fixed, but today the labor costs of having someone else do it would be astronomical for most people. A significant portion of the total cost.
    • dehrmann 3y ago
      What changed to bring down the cost so much? There's some clever bits to make them work, but the bill of materials is low, and none of the parts or manufacturing should be all that complex.
• matheusmoreira 3y ago
  It probably won't. Chances are it'll be just a shiny "high end" model which is the same parts and materials as the cheap ones but with some additional functions nobody cares about. High prices are just a market segmentation strategy to CEOs. I've grown so disillusioned with these "products" that I've started trying to make them myself instead of buying them. It's difficult though. Even something "simple" like a high quality knife requires a lot of skill to create. I want to create at least one before I die though.
• add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
  I feel arguments that treat inflation as a magic singular variable around which the universe revolves ignore that decades of progress and technology and economies of scale are also factors, and they make possible in 2023 a hypothetical toaster that's both affordable and reliable.
• naravara 3y ago
  Honestly if you could plonk down a ton of money for a reliable appliance that’d be great but that’s usually not what money buys you now. Spending more usually results in fancier styling, nicer materials if you’re lucky, and a bunch of unnecessary technological frippery that ends up making the thing less reliable, not more. That’s the real problem is that the luxury tier of so many markets has thoroughly enshittified. I generally trust that Apple computers are Toyotas and a few other brands tend to last (or at least have robust enough support structures in place like with the former) enough that I feel more comfortable owning them but few others earn that trust from me. I’ve heard good things about Miele vacuums, but apparently only the heavy duty canister vacs. Their more consumer friendly uprights are apparently mediocre. Other appliances I have no idea.
  • jonahss 3y ago
    the Miele vacuums are incredible. If you want appliances that last, buy the commercial ones. Hobart makes an under counter dishwasher that you can bet will never wear out and can be repaired. Shell out for an industrial washing machine like they have at the laundromats. Those things are made to run all day for years. If they break down, they're repairable.
    • robocat 3y ago
      My Miele dishwasher has totally failed less than 5 years old. Not worth the expensive price. Probably fixable but requires a multi-hundred-$ relay. I haven't fixed it because of my time cost (such a hassle). Previously bought a much cheaper dishwasher for my previous house that is still going strong. I found a geeky person on the sales floor that dealt with dishwasher returns and asked his advice for buying a reliable one: his advice seems to have been solid. I recommend trying this approach. Unfortunately we can no longer trust brand names. Most previously trustworthy brands have turned to shit. I now mostly aim for mediocrity because that seems to be the sweet spot (cheap is usually trash, expensive usually is poor value for money). It is very difficult to make good decisions for most purchases - requiring too much effort and brainspace. I never want to learn the details of appliances but I am given little choice. The other problem is that the UX/UI of many modern devices has gone to complete shit. Searching for a usable appliance is a nightmare.
• paleface 3y ago
  Exactly! You can still get kitchen appliances that last, but you need to be prepared to purchase pro catering equipment. High quality toasters still exist - be they in conveyer belt form, salamander grills, or the old stalwart: the Dualit professional models. The same applies to microwaves, hobs, ovens, ranges (combined hob/oven), et al.
• lamp987 3y ago
  you really underestimate the living standards of 1950. in many ways higher than today.
  • lovecg 3y ago
    I’m curious which ways you mean. Many things that we assume existed in the past were pretty unevenly distributed. Even something basic we take for granted like plumbing was only available in only a ~third of households in some states https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-plumbing.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-plumb...
    • ianburrell 3y ago
      A good example is that in the 1950, 61% of households had a telephone. It got above 90% in 1970, peaked in 2000, and stopped tracking in 2008.
• theshrike79 3y ago
  I'm _literally_ just looking for a toaster that'll outlast me and found Dualit: https://www.dualit.com/products/2-slice-newgen https://www.dualit.com/products/2-slice-newgen Hand made in the UK, fully mechanical and you can get spare parts for it. There's very little that can fail, it doesn't have a spring that brings the toast up, you need to push the lever yourself. Even the timer is fully mechanical.
  • tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    >Hand made in the UK, fully mechanical and you can get spare parts for it. They only sell spares for the higher end models. We have a basic Dualit toaster which you can't get spares for (although it has been reliable so far).
• tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  I was thinking this. When we moved into our first house it took years before we had completely furnished it. My son did his first flat for less than one month's salary.