5 ms·

There's also a survival bias in that we don't consider the appliances from yesteryear that packed up back when disco was king.

by spzb 3y ago

pkdpic 3y ago
That's the smartest possible counterpoint to all this, nicely counterpointed. This was a fun read and I agree in sentiment to the rage of all the crap from target that falls apart in 10 minutes but I feel like I've developed an ok sense if when I'm taking this risk and am less frustrated when something cheap fails. Essentially any time I buy anything but a book from Amazon or anything but cereal and vodka from Target. Ultimately I think the crapification of lowend consumer goods has just made me buy less crap, which feels good I think. I've also accepted a pretend scifi narrative in which the only kind of society that doesn't descend into anarchy is one where people are constantly buying and throwing away cheap crap. And as an aside I have one of those crazy juicers but I stopped using it because it scares my wife and smells like burning / ozone.
- Brybry 3y ago
  Even some Amazon stuff is really good. I used a Kindle 2 e-reader daily for ~14 years and, aside from decreased battery life, it was still great. Sadly I eventually stepped on it one too many times and the screen cracked. I might fix it for ~$20 with ebay parts if I ever get bored enough.
idontwantthis 3y ago
Yeah this article would be a lot more interesting if there were a conspiracy to buy up all of the indestructible appliances made more than x decades ago. If they really were that much better then more of them would be around today.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Not really, since most consumers just go for whatever has the more "features" and is marketed at them.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
    I don't like this trend either. I was trying to buy an electric toothbrush the other month and there were so many models with different features. I'm like wtf it's a toothbrush, can it brush my teeth? Yes? Give me that one. I don't need you to tell me when to replace the brush or how long to brush for or sing me a song.
- piva00 3y ago
  I live in Sweden and can find quite a lot of old school kitchen appliances in flea markets/thrift stores. I bought my Technivorm Moccamaster coffeemaker in one, a Bamix immersion blender, a Bosch stand mixer, all of them from around the 80s and still working 100% fine.
  - Wistar 3y ago
    My 3 year old Moccamaster’s auto-off feature gave up a couple months ago. It uses a special mechanical switch—an illuminated rocker switch that physically flips and turns the carafe warming plate off after 100 minutes—that I know I could easily replace if I had the part but Technivorm insists I send the unit to them which I probably never will do because the packing and shipping is a pain and costly and because I need my coffee. And, boy, does it make good coffee.
bigodbiel 3y ago
Planned obsolescence is industry standard, from toasters to iphones.
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
  Downvoted? Isn't it curriculum?
- Libcat99 3y ago
  It's just a subscription model for physical goods.
bernawil 3y ago
That old juicer from the 40s was likely expensive "industrial" equipment for restaurants. Even today, if you buy any professional appliance and only give it occasional home use it will last forever.
gumby 3y ago
I enjoyed the rant nature of the essay but your comment hits the spot. We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, and ignore the overconstruction required of the survivors because mechanical theory was still developing at the time. Also we used to have more single-application devices; while a juicer is often still a single-application device today, at the other extreme our phone has absorbed a deskfull of other single-application devices (and more). Usually with some improved reliability, some less, and also some loss of affordance.
- nemo 3y ago
  >We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, Engineers tend to put care into building bridges that don't collapse, and have been doing so for millenia so collapses can happen, but are rare. "All the bridges that long ago collapsed" is in my opinion not all that many bridges, really [1], and lots of people remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I still remember the bridge collapse from the Northridge quake too. Bridges are a special case of civic architecture where long durability and long reliability are taken into account that are kind of a special class, so they're probably not a great thing to generalize from. [1] You can judge for yourself from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures
  - gumby 3y ago
    Well I was talking about the Victorian era (emergence of iron bridge building) and indeed quite a few make that list. "Engineering" in the sense it has today didn't exist back then. Brunel was truly revolutionary in this regard, though even how he thought of it would be far from what we today call engineering. We see this in the evolution of many technologies, from boiler explosions (especially in trains) that are pretty much unknown today to jet air travel (likewise at a rather extraordinary state of safety) and many others besides (consider the implementation and impact of vaccination).
  - getwiththeprog 3y ago
    The bridges we still have are maintained. Bridges fail all the time, but we only repair the ones we want to keep. Your link to wikipedia as proof that bridges do not fail is a case of the observer fallacy. The wikipedia article tells us of some bridges that failed, not all bridges that failed. Gumby's point that the Victorian era bridges we still have were over-engineered is I think a good point. However we might like to say that they were well-engineered, but I bet that even they have been in a state of on-and-off if not constant repair.
cameldrv 3y ago
Thinking back to growing up, we had an electric stove, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and refrigerator. All were purchased from '79-82 or so. 1. Stove died in about 2007 2. Washer/dryer were replaced with something "better", although they were still running in 2009 3. Dishwasher died in 2011 4. Refrigerator was replaced but still running in 2013 This was not just survivorship bias. Basically all of these appliances lasted at least 30 years. They were from good brands (Washer/dryer and dishwasher were Maytag), but I don't think you can buy an appliance today that you can truly expect to last 30 years. At the least, there will be some sort of control board that will give out after 10-15 years and won't be available anymore.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  This. I don't really care about cars but for household appliances there is a clear tendency towards obsolescence. Another data point: Just replaced a washer from the early 90s (German low-price brand, "Privileg") with one from the 2010s by a higher-priced brand (Bosch). Both were used. Reason for replacement: small top-loader for larger standard washer. Both were obviously bought used. The newer one broke within six months. The old, 30-year old one still works. The defect was a mechanical one, not the PCB. But notably, the still-functioning washer has no digital controls. I know, anecdata is no data. But for this kind of appliance, I'd bet my arm that their lifetime has decreased substantially.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  Bought a house in 1990 that had all of the original appliances in it from 1974. The stove died around 2000 (26 years). The Fridge died around 2010 (36 years). The dishwasher died in 2012 (38 years). We started renting that house out in 2010 and bought a different house that had appliances that were about 7 years old (based on what the previous owner had told us). We had to replace the dishwasher in 2012 (so it was 9 years old then) and since then we had to replace it again in 2022 (at 10 years). Had to replace the fridge in 2014 (11 years).
- keep_reading 3y ago
  You can, it's SpeedQueen > We test our commercial quality machines to 10,400 cycles or roughly 25 years of life in an average household. > You probably want to hear that we test our electronic controls to one million depressions…yes, we actually do. https://speedqueen.com/speed-queen-difference/ https://speedqueen.com/speed-queen-difference/

There's also a survival bias in that we don't consider the appliances from yesteryear that packed up back when disco was king.

by spzb 3y ago

There's also a survival bias in that we don't consider the appliances from yesteryear that packed up back when disco was king.

pkdpic 3y ago

That's the smartest possible counterpoint to all this, nicely counterpointed. This was a fun read and I agree in sentiment to the rage of all the crap from target that falls apart in 10 minutes but I feel like I've developed an ok sense if when I'm taking this risk and am less frustrated when something cheap fails. Essentially any time I buy anything but a book from Amazon or anything but cereal and vodka from Target. Ultimately I think the crapification of lowend consumer goods has just made me buy less crap, which feels good I think. I've also accepted a pretend scifi narrative in which the only kind of society that doesn't descend into anarchy is one where people are constantly buying and throwing away cheap crap. And as an aside I have one of those crazy juicers but I stopped using it because it scares my wife and smells like burning / ozone.

Brybry 3y ago
Even some Amazon stuff is really good. I used a Kindle 2 e-reader daily for ~14 years and, aside from decreased battery life, it was still great. Sadly I eventually stepped on it one too many times and the screen cracked. I might fix it for ~$20 with ebay parts if I ever get bored enough.

idontwantthis 3y ago

Yeah this article would be a lot more interesting if there were a conspiracy to buy up all of the indestructible appliances made more than x decades ago. If they really were that much better then more of them would be around today.

coldtea 3y ago
Not really, since most consumers just go for whatever has the more "features" and is marketed at them.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
  I don't like this trend either. I was trying to buy an electric toothbrush the other month and there were so many models with different features. I'm like wtf it's a toothbrush, can it brush my teeth? Yes? Give me that one. I don't need you to tell me when to replace the brush or how long to brush for or sing me a song.
piva00 3y ago
I live in Sweden and can find quite a lot of old school kitchen appliances in flea markets/thrift stores. I bought my Technivorm Moccamaster coffeemaker in one, a Bamix immersion blender, a Bosch stand mixer, all of them from around the 80s and still working 100% fine.
- Wistar 3y ago
  My 3 year old Moccamaster’s auto-off feature gave up a couple months ago. It uses a special mechanical switch—an illuminated rocker switch that physically flips and turns the carafe warming plate off after 100 minutes—that I know I could easily replace if I had the part but Technivorm insists I send the unit to them which I probably never will do because the packing and shipping is a pain and costly and because I need my coffee. And, boy, does it make good coffee.

bigodbiel 3y ago

Planned obsolescence is industry standard, from toasters to iphones.

ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
Downvoted? Isn't it curriculum?
Libcat99 3y ago
It's just a subscription model for physical goods.

bernawil 3y ago

That old juicer from the 40s was likely expensive "industrial" equipment for restaurants. Even today, if you buy any professional appliance and only give it occasional home use it will last forever.

gumby 3y ago

I enjoyed the rant nature of the essay but your comment hits the spot. We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, and ignore the overconstruction required of the survivors because mechanical theory was still developing at the time. Also we used to have more single-application devices; while a juicer is often still a single-application device today, at the other extreme our phone has absorbed a deskfull of other single-application devices (and more). Usually with some improved reliability, some less, and also some loss of affordance.

nemo 3y ago
>We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, Engineers tend to put care into building bridges that don't collapse, and have been doing so for millenia so collapses can happen, but are rare. "All the bridges that long ago collapsed" is in my opinion not all that many bridges, really [1], and lots of people remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I still remember the bridge collapse from the Northridge quake too. Bridges are a special case of civic architecture where long durability and long reliability are taken into account that are kind of a special class, so they're probably not a great thing to generalize from. [1] You can judge for yourself from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures
- gumby 3y ago
  Well I was talking about the Victorian era (emergence of iron bridge building) and indeed quite a few make that list. "Engineering" in the sense it has today didn't exist back then. Brunel was truly revolutionary in this regard, though even how he thought of it would be far from what we today call engineering. We see this in the evolution of many technologies, from boiler explosions (especially in trains) that are pretty much unknown today to jet air travel (likewise at a rather extraordinary state of safety) and many others besides (consider the implementation and impact of vaccination).
- getwiththeprog 3y ago
  The bridges we still have are maintained. Bridges fail all the time, but we only repair the ones we want to keep. Your link to wikipedia as proof that bridges do not fail is a case of the observer fallacy. The wikipedia article tells us of some bridges that failed, not all bridges that failed. Gumby's point that the Victorian era bridges we still have were over-engineered is I think a good point. However we might like to say that they were well-engineered, but I bet that even they have been in a state of on-and-off if not constant repair.

cameldrv 3y ago

Thinking back to growing up, we had an electric stove, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and refrigerator. All were purchased from '79-82 or so. 1. Stove died in about 2007 2. Washer/dryer were replaced with something "better", although they were still running in 2009 3. Dishwasher died in 2011 4. Refrigerator was replaced but still running in 2013 This was not just survivorship bias. Basically all of these appliances lasted at least 30 years. They were from good brands (Washer/dryer and dishwasher were Maytag), but I don't think you can buy an appliance today that you can truly expect to last 30 years. At the least, there will be some sort of control board that will give out after 10-15 years and won't be available anymore.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
This. I don't really care about cars but for household appliances there is a clear tendency towards obsolescence. Another data point: Just replaced a washer from the early 90s (German low-price brand, "Privileg") with one from the 2010s by a higher-priced brand (Bosch). Both were used. Reason for replacement: small top-loader for larger standard washer. Both were obviously bought used. The newer one broke within six months. The old, 30-year old one still works. The defect was a mechanical one, not the PCB. But notably, the still-functioning washer has no digital controls. I know, anecdata is no data. But for this kind of appliance, I'd bet my arm that their lifetime has decreased substantially.
UncleOxidant 3y ago
Bought a house in 1990 that had all of the original appliances in it from 1974. The stove died around 2000 (26 years). The Fridge died around 2010 (36 years). The dishwasher died in 2012 (38 years). We started renting that house out in 2010 and bought a different house that had appliances that were about 7 years old (based on what the previous owner had told us). We had to replace the dishwasher in 2012 (so it was 9 years old then) and since then we had to replace it again in 2022 (at 10 years). Had to replace the fridge in 2014 (11 years).
keep_reading 3y ago
You can, it's SpeedQueen > We test our commercial quality machines to 10,400 cycles or roughly 25 years of life in an average household. > You probably want to hear that we test our electronic controls to one million depressions…yes, we actually do. https://speedqueen.com/speed-queen-difference/ https://speedqueen.com/speed-queen-difference/