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It's very fun to get angry at appliance makers - but if they actually made the appliances that we think they should, they would go broke because nobody (except

It's very fun to get angry at appliance makers - but if they actually made the appliances that we think they should, they would go broke because nobody (except a few of us) would buy them. This is how these newer "smart" appliances started taking over in the first place. As evidence, check out some of the manufacturers that do make higher-quality dumb appliances, like Subzero and Speed Queen and notice how little consumer market share they have. Of course they are more expensive, but that's where the supply and demand curve cross. But where people like business owners WILL pay more for quality and longevity, they do have a major share of the commercial market.

jfengel 3y ago
I suspect the manufacturers get stuck in the race to the bottom. Customers want to spend as little as possible, but that makes it hard to choose one low-end device over the other. So they add features that cost very little but attract attention -- even if they make the actual experience worse.
- Nifty3929 3y ago
  Yes, I think this is exactly it.
ben_w 3y ago
That sounds like an argument in favour of[0] centralised planned manufacturing — we can't get good stuff, because short-lived shiny products outcompete boring high quality products. [0] this doesn't mean it's a sufficient, let alone universally applicable, argument in favour; I'm well aware of many examples of central planning failures.
switch007 3y ago
Right. People seem to not want inflation to apply to appliances. E.g. a decent toaster in 1984 in the UK was about £18. That's £72 now. Only posh people spend £72 on a toaster. Most people I imagine want to pay no more than £40. Microwaves were around £200. That's £805 now. Nobody is spending £800 on a microwave.
- class3shock 3y ago
  Don't forget though that that toaster may have been made by people being paid a living wage, maybe even in the UK, and probably in the tens-hundreds of thousands, not millions of units produced as cheaply as possible by slave labor.

jfengel 3y ago

I suspect the manufacturers get stuck in the race to the bottom. Customers want to spend as little as possible, but that makes it hard to choose one low-end device over the other. So they add features that cost very little but attract attention -- even if they make the actual experience worse.

Nifty3929 3y ago
Yes, I think this is exactly it.

ben_w 3y ago

That sounds like an argument in favour of[0] centralised planned manufacturing — we can't get good stuff, because short-lived shiny products outcompete boring high quality products. [0] this doesn't mean it's a sufficient, let alone universally applicable, argument in favour; I'm well aware of many examples of central planning failures.

switch007 3y ago

Right. People seem to not want inflation to apply to appliances. E.g. a decent toaster in 1984 in the UK was about £18. That's £72 now. Only posh people spend £72 on a toaster. Most people I imagine want to pay no more than £40. Microwaves were around £200. That's £805 now. Nobody is spending £800 on a microwave.

class3shock 3y ago
Don't forget though that that toaster may have been made by people being paid a living wage, maybe even in the UK, and probably in the tens-hundreds of thousands, not millions of units produced as cheaply as possible by slave labor.