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> The Sunbeam T-20 reportedly retailed for over $22.50 brand new back in 1949. That’s $260 in today’s money When people talk about appliances today being buil

> The Sunbeam T-20 reportedly retailed for over $22.50 brand new back in 1949. That’s $260 in today’s money When people talk about appliances today being built with deliberate "planned obsolescence" (ie, designed to fail within 2 years so you have to buy another one), I like to point the above out. I don't think modern cheap design is a deliberately malicious move being done to make more money. I think it's a consequence of consumers being short-sighted and VERY price-sensitive. Most consumers, when they go to Walmart to buy, say, a blender, might see the $19 Mainstays (Walmart's own brand), $30 Hamilton Beach, and $100 Ninja, and will opt for the Mainstays that will die in a year of moderate use, rather than the HB that will last 3-5 years. But back to my original point, because of price sensitivity of consumers, capitalist competition creates a race to the bottom on prices, and quality suffers as a result. I don't think it's part of a sinister plan to make you buy a new one every year. And for the people that are willing to pay for the higher quality, good brands still exist. For your blender, that's probably going to be Vitamix or Blendtec.

hprotagonist 3y ago
right: you can, today, absolutely buy a {fridge, freezer, oven, ... } that has a 50+ year life in the home. You're gonna buy it from a restaurant supply company, and it's gonna cost 4 figures. Just like in 1950.
ndiddy 3y ago
You can certainly pay $250 for a toaster nowadays, but all you'll get for your additional money is a higher quality casing and maybe a microcontroller and LCD all surrounding the same toaster guts. Similarly, you can pay $500 for a Kitchenaid mixer instead of $100 for a Walmart mixer, but both will have plastic gears that break in a few years. The issue is that there's many categories of products where high-quality, long-lasting options simply no longer exist, and where the amount of money you pay has no impact on its quality or longevity. In fact, paying more gets you more bells and whistles that can fail.
- orwin 3y ago
  All plastic part should be replaceable, and you should be able to either buy them from the constructor, or have the plans available once you can't. At least in Europe, probably before 2030. That was in the Boost4.0 consortium document I had to read around 2019. I don't know if the law is pending or in application yet, but EU manufacturing sector know it's coming.
- nunez 3y ago
  $500 will get you a Pro-line KitchenAid mixer. These are all stainless steel and can mix seriously thick dough. They'll also last a very long time.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
  > but both will have plastic gears that break in a few years. Someone in another comment said that the KitchenAid comes with a plastic gear so that if the motor is overloaded, the gear breaks rather than letting the high-power and expensive motor burn out.
phh 3y ago
Subscriptions gets a lot of hate, including on HN, partly for good reasons, but it has the bonus points that the companies' incentive is to make their products last longer. That's especially true for dumb devices that won't give any new feature to users with every year new model. I see signs that we're kinda sorta getting there, in France we have for instance Darty Max subscription which for a fixed price (starting at 12€/month) will come to your house and fix your appliance. But I feel like it's way too slow coming, and they don't have backward feedback (yet?) to tell which OEMs are doing well, which are doing shit.

hprotagonist 3y ago

right: you can, today, absolutely buy a {fridge, freezer, oven, ... } that has a 50+ year life in the home. You're gonna buy it from a restaurant supply company, and it's gonna cost 4 figures. Just like in 1950.

ndiddy 3y ago

You can certainly pay $250 for a toaster nowadays, but all you'll get for your additional money is a higher quality casing and maybe a microcontroller and LCD all surrounding the same toaster guts. Similarly, you can pay $500 for a Kitchenaid mixer instead of $100 for a Walmart mixer, but both will have plastic gears that break in a few years. The issue is that there's many categories of products where high-quality, long-lasting options simply no longer exist, and where the amount of money you pay has no impact on its quality or longevity. In fact, paying more gets you more bells and whistles that can fail.

orwin 3y ago
All plastic part should be replaceable, and you should be able to either buy them from the constructor, or have the plans available once you can't. At least in Europe, probably before 2030. That was in the Boost4.0 consortium document I had to read around 2019. I don't know if the law is pending or in application yet, but EU manufacturing sector know it's coming.
nunez 3y ago
$500 will get you a Pro-line KitchenAid mixer. These are all stainless steel and can mix seriously thick dough. They'll also last a very long time.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
> but both will have plastic gears that break in a few years. Someone in another comment said that the KitchenAid comes with a plastic gear so that if the motor is overloaded, the gear breaks rather than letting the high-power and expensive motor burn out.

phh 3y ago

Subscriptions gets a lot of hate, including on HN, partly for good reasons, but it has the bonus points that the companies' incentive is to make their products last longer. That's especially true for dumb devices that won't give any new feature to users with every year new model. I see signs that we're kinda sorta getting there, in France we have for instance Darty Max subscription which for a fixed price (starting at 12€/month) will come to your house and fix your appliance. But I feel like it's way too slow coming, and they don't have backward feedback (yet?) to tell which OEMs are doing well, which are doing shit.