This is it. You can still buy fridges that last forever, such as Bosch, but it's twice as expensive. Appliances have gotten cheaper both in terms of build quali

This is it. You can still buy fridges that last forever, such as Bosch, but it's twice as expensive. Appliances have gotten cheaper both in terms of build quality and cost and become much more accessible and overall cheaper over the same period of time as you've pointed out. I also wonder how many people had fridges in 1935 vs now. I don't think it's some cynical plot to make things worse over time but a result of competition. It's similar with flying and how miserable it is. People fly a lot more these days because competition has driven cost down and make it more accessible but quality had to be sacrificed. If you can afford it, business or first class flying is still pretty nice.