This has a very simple reason: the cost of manufacturing has shrunk and the cost of repair has not. Because repairs require expensive people and manufacturing can take place with automation or cheap labor.
The worst offenders aren't large appliances, it's the cheap crap. If a store sells me an electric toothbrush for $79 and it breaks after a month shouln't just be required to replace it, it has to be worse than that to make products where even 1/1000 fail. And the result of such action would be that electric tooth brushes soon cost $200 instead of $79. But that's a good thing.
When I browse appliances or electronics, I want to know the lifespan. Not just the warranty. I want to know how long people actually use this particular product. And it can't just be based on some Amazon review system, it needs to be reliable and cover every seller. Like car mileage I need to have a decent idea about what to expect. And even if just 10% of product have this rating - that's also a good thing. It would mean less churn because manufacturers would be reluctant to replace an officially labeled product with a new one.
So we'd have longer lasting, rarely replaced models, more expensive products. Which is what we need.
> When I browse appliances or electronics, I want to know the lifespan.
An approach for this is to switch from owning to renting.
Say you rent your washing machine for 1000 runs.
Consequence then is that you have predictable cost per run and since the vendor is responsible for maintenance and deposition, thus they have an interest in making the machine repairable and recyclable.
Here in Norway, for large appliances there's a 5-year statutory warranty[1], 2 years for smaller appliances etc.
It covers anything that's not a wear-item breaking due to normal use. The shop who sold it has the burden of proof in case they want to claim it's been exposed to non-normal usage.
The shop has the right to try to repair the damage, but after two times (for the same issue), you have the right to get your money back.
Now surviving 5 years doesn't mean the thing will last 20. But it should at least keep the crap away.
Quebec, Canada one-ups on this! Our warranty law essentially says a "product must work for as long as is reasonable". There is also a very easy way for citizens to apply to a commission, including past judgements, with a simple form and no cost.
One can also look at past judgements.
So far, the logic is that an expensive fridge should last 10 to 20 years. Same for other appliances. And if companies give the run-around, those costs are added to judgement costs too.
These laws, such as Norway's and this one in Quebec, are vital. And to anyone saying they care about the environment, creating a massive appliance like this, and then making it purposefully bork early to kick a replacement, is absurd. The environmental cost of production, shipping, and then trashing such an appliance is silly, just to pad the pocket book.
Note: I'm the first to say profit = awesome. Let the market decide. But LG (for example) is famous for having a compressor issue with fridges, to the extent that there have been class action lawsuits against them. And on top of that, having an inability to get any parts... so people cannot even get fridges fixed! Replacing fridges every 2 years (an example) instead of once a decade is probably incredibly bad for the environment... for no valid reason!
The reasonable lifetime warranty provides that an appliance must serve for normal use for a reasonable period of time. However, the law does not specify, for example, that a stove must have a lifetime of 10 years. Why? Because several factors, such as the price paid, the contract, and the conditions of use, must be taken into account to determine the reasonable lifetime of the item. Thus, a $700 stove cannot be expected to last as long as another one with the same features, but that costs $1,500.
Also, add to the above another bit of logic I've heard. If you buy a clothes washer, and use it 3x every single day, obviously that might fall into "non-consumer use" or "excessive use", thus shortening the above "reasonable lifetime". Meanwhile, if you're a bachelor that uses the washer once a week, the inverse is true! It should last longer.
Just to be clear, within the entire 5 year period a defect is assumed to be a manufacturing fault? If not, isn’t it easy for the seller to claim damage/wear and tear etc?
We have 6 years in the UK but only in the first 6 months is a defect assumed to be a manufacturing defect, which is naturally the period with your strongest rights and when it’s easy to get a repair or replacement. After that, you need to argue quite a lot
>Here in Norway, for large appliances there's a 5-year statutory warranty[1], 2 years for smaller appliances etc.
If a few larger markets would start having similar laws, it'd essentially fix the problem for the rest of us. I imagine currently Norway is small enough that manufacturers can just keep making crap and eat the cost of Norwegian returns.
This sounds great! Then if course the shops exert pressure on suppliers for quality hypothetically, but I wonder this just manifests as optimizing to fail after 5 years mostly reliably.
I wonder if it translates into shops not selling the most unreliable crap, or selling it at a markup, compared to other countries. Or do they just amortize the cost across entire product gauntlet.
It's hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last, so the products are engineered to either be part of a subscription, to be replaced far sooner than necessary, or both. They're worried more about their revenue sustainability than they are actual product "sustainability."
The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going to sell another one unless it's to another (new) customer or purchased as a gift for someone by their existing loyal customer. So then they start entering into new product areas and eventually end up compromising quality.
As other have mentioned, this is becoming particularly annoying with home appliances and cars. "They don't make them like they used to" are true words.
Appliance manufacturers survived most of the 20th century making reliable products for a smaller global population. On the other hand, it's hard to have never ending quarterly profit growth without planned obsolescence to create extra demand that normally wouldn't exist.
I don't agree, its like saying Victorinox/Wenger ran out of business because everybody eventually got that small pocket knife of theirs and due to its quality nobody is replacing those.
Yet reality is more like - completely new markets are opening, new rich people look for quality good brands, or father happy with his knife for 20 years will buy another one for his son. Or Miele, brand completely built on just its perceived reliability. They cost 2-3x more compared to even Bosch/Siemens, without any unique features apart from this.
The problem is, as almost everywhere in corporations - C-suite bonus incentives. Quick milking without care about long term strategies or brand name is the name of the game.
I suspect it is more an issue with the "do one thing and do it well" trope than anything else. A great team that can design and produce high quality that is valued as high price surely can diversify along the way, if the management sees it and invests.
The annoying thing is that you see arcticles in paper and clips on tv that you have to upgrade all your old equipment from the 60s so you can "save energy".
Who wants some iFridge/iOven when the equipment made in the 60s was built to survive two zombies apocalypse and one nuclear war and won't connect to the internet for a firmware update.
Also the CIA can't hack your fridge so you get salmonella from your chicken because they have access to your shopping patterns from the super market.
I am very curious as to whether the money you save in energy bills from today’s more ‘energy-efficient’ appliances outdoes the money spent in replacing the things so much more frequently.
Older appliances may cost more to run but it’s possible they pay themselves off by virtue of not having to re-buy them every few years.
Speculation, of course. I wonder if anyone’s done the math on this.
We own a second fridge, a GE (family of 6 so we need the extra storage). It is now ~65 years old and has never needed service and has not failed to maintain the correct temperature.
I have a friend who works in production. I cannot remember exactly what his education is, but it's a type of engineer. If you want something produced that you have invented, he can get it done.
He has mentioned that they have software that can calculate the average lifespan of the finished product by entering the different components that goes into the product (like this piece has this amount of iron, this amount of tin, etc).
Based upon this the software can calculate the lifespan very precisely and determine if they have made it "too good". If it's too good the quality is decreased on purpose in order to reduce the lifespan such that people will buy more. Other testing goes into the equation as well, but enough data has been collected over the years that it can be calculated/simulated.
Trade: If the company at ANY POINT calculates a lifetime analysis for the whole or any sub-component, the SHORTEST LIFETIME DURATION, MUST be advertised at the same print scale size and next to the price of the product at all times.
That's one way to put it. Another would be to say that an appliance is (or should be) designed to last for approximately the amount of time it is likely to be in use, as people often upgrade old machines that haven't failed because the new ones are more energy efficient, faster, quieter, more convenient or clean better. There is no point in designing a washing machine to last 50 years, it only adds to the cost and nobody will use it for that long.
It’s not just appliances, it’s even common household items too. Someone disassembled a portable toothbrush that died within some months vs the many years of the one that died before.
The original one had what looked like a custom/in house engineered motor with a solid structure and beefy battery. The new one had those cheap toy motors that cost a few pennies each along with a flimsy frame and tiny battery to match.
I have a Sonicare that rattled the head off within a half year of buying it. I took it apart and it was due to a screw with no thread lock being the only thing holding everything together. On a vibrating part.
Put some thread lock on it and it’s been totally fine since, but that seems like it’s intentionally planned to fail. Good job, Philips.
A good example of this is the Kitchenaid standing mixer that used to have metal gears and now has plastic gears and easily fails. They used to last generations, now they last a few years. They turned one of the most iconic small appliances into a generic plastic piece of junk.
Sure but I bet the original one cost $100 in 20 years ago money and the new one was $15 on sale. These sorts of comparisons never compare like to like.
> A spokeswoman for the Association for Home Appliance Manufacturers says [...] data last updated in 2019 shows that the average life of an appliance has “not substantially shifted over the past two decades.”
So, unless she is lying, there is actually no story?
"Substantially" is doing a lot of work there, and "last updated in 2019" means half a decade out of date. It's a fun modeling exercise: how much do you need to reduce durability in order to make people spend 40%+ more on replacements (in constant dollars, I suppose)? I'm pretty sure that the members of the Association for Home Appliance Manufacturers have created that model, but they're not going to share it with the public. If the answer is a few percent, disregarding the last five years, they're not strictly lying. Just not telling you the whole truth.
I'm inclined to believe it. Most of the appliances, other than washers and dryers, that I see people replace are generally replaced due to simply wanting something nicer or newer and not because the last one stopped working. People have this belief bias that old appliances are better because of some old fridge in their garage that has been trucking along for 60 years, but the reality is that that is just survivorship bias. The only real exception would be 'smart' features that fail before the core utility of the appliance fails. I imagine a lot of perfectly good fridges get replaced when the tv screens on them break and whatnot.
It might be an unpopular opinion, but globalization did this — the consolidation and exportation of manufacturing out of the west has decimated manufacturing capabilities in the countries.
My father was a tool maker (top of his profession, top shop at Molex for a time). He and everyone he knew had such pride in their work. They also knew who would use their products. They cared about the quality and worked hard to deliver. It was a personal pride thing, as much as anything else.
When you export manufacturing, people don’t know who they’re building for. Nor does near slave labor in some places create quality.
Not to mention, companies are trying to maximize profit. To contrast, the owner of molex at one point heard my dad needed a surgery. He came down on the shop floor, called him over and sent my dad (and our family) to the Mayo Clinic for 2 weeks to have the surgery done (all expenses paid). It wasn’t for profit, it was for a good business.
Globalization and planned obsolescence (PO) are just two prongs of the same thing: profit maximizing corporations. Another one is the pervasive subscription model. These companies want a consistent, predictable revenue stream.
In a way you can think of PO as a sort of subscription. If my AirPods last 3 years on average they cost me around $25 per year to own.
> To contrast, the owner of molex at one point heard my dad needed a surgery. He came down on the shop floor, called him over and sent my dad (and our family) to the Mayo Clinic for 2 weeks to have the surgery done (all expenses paid).
I don't know how often this happens in Western mega corporations (which is probably why you're surprised).
And you obviously haven't been to Japan. Yes, long hours, but your employer takes care of most aspects of your life. Healthcare, apartment, marriage, your kids education, everything. See this article by patio11: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
In the non-crappy businesses in India other people — coworkers, bosses, etc — taking care of you is routine. And — okay this is a terrible example — in the unfortunate situation that somebody dies, for instance, trust me, random people just help the family with funeral and stuff like that.
What I'm trying to say is this: the rest of the world isn't filled with morons and cattle.
Oh and by the way, across the world people want quality products. Even people from — gasp — the global South. We too want our fridges and washing machines and TVs and cars and everything else to last forever.
The article focuses a lot on GE, however from my experience now most of the appliances are Bosh or LG from Korea.
On the LG side, I feel like the quality has really gone downhill over the years. I had a GE washer which gave me 13 years of life -- not bad for $400. I replaced it with an LG now and already regretting it -- complicated controls which seem somewhat redundant, more electronics instead of just knobs to turn.
Also bought an LG microwave. Kept blowing my circuit (and yes, it was rated for 15A and I have 20A circuits). Replaced with smaller model, still Chinese garbage, but less complicated. It's worked perfectly.
Genuine question why would you describe it as "Chinese garbage" if it worked perfectly? Are you referring to its aesthetics or the price? In both cases I don't think this adjective is merited...
I can buy a lot of $20 sale price black and decker coffee pots for the $500 that repairable one costs though. There should be a sweet spot between junk and bougie high end stuff.
I’ve thought about this a lot while restoring an old sewing machine. I conclude it comes down to the Labor-Capital share in a market [1].
Labor used to be relatively more abundant compared to capital. In these conditions, servicing an older machine makes economic sense.
With capital becoming relatively cheap compared to labor, servicing becomes more expensive. It then becomes cheaper to simply replace an appliance, utilizing efficiencies of scale unlocked on the factory floor though greater automation. Repairmen don’t enjoy the same efficiency gains because diagnosing and repairing an issue is still fundamentally a manual process.
It’s classic greenwashing - a more efficient fridge is obviously better, right? Except they use extremely thin oil so it dies in a few years.
Another interesting narrative is how Segway shut down the production of their scooter because they were so well made that they weren’t selling enough! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23621279
It’s a weird world and I wish I could just have my cake and eat it too.
We've gone through three refrigerators in about four years...the first one had survived more than ten years and had just run its course -- all the cheap plastic had broken on it, but it still kept things cold. Replaced with a second-hand LG, and you know how that went - compressor went out after two years and would have cost as much as a new one to repair. Bought an outlet store domestic brand (I forget which one now) - freezer didn't work, back to the store it went. Bought a Kenmore (I think?)... turns out it is one of the models that has known issues, and the parts backlog is at least 6 months. Living in small town America, the problem is made worse because we only have two, maybe three repair options - first they tell you they won't work on LG, but whatever you buy they won't work on that either. Good luck getting a warranty honored on anything. Have decided when I remodel the kitchen, I'm going big - some kind of commercial fridge, as it is clear that consumer grade stuff simply doesn't work. If you are going to spend $3K a pop on a fridge (the prices have gotten crazy too!) and they aren't going to last more than a couple years, just spend the $10K on a commercial model and get your decade+ out of it.
And then there's Bosch, etc... now, I'd like to buy a Bosch, but my current partner doesn't want to spend the money, she likes buying outlet / second-hand / feeling like she got a deal, which is a problem. But - even the top end consumer Bosch is relatively small and I'm not sure the plastic bits are any more durable. I do like the dual compressor system though.
And then there's dishwashers... oh Maytag, how you've fallen thanks to VC/ PE...
This is why I manufacture a lot of my own appliances these days. The parts are all available online, and I trust my engineering moreso than manufacturers these days.
I would be very interested in open-source plans like this, and joining (or helping form) a community around the idea of appliances built to last, or more importantly, using modular standard parts and designed for repair.
That probably voids any kind of accident insurance. One house fire and you're homeless. One injury to another person and you're facing millions in bills.
Personal anecdote:
I bought an expensive Samsung cloth dryer. The more recent ones with a heat pump together with the same segment, Samsung cloth washing machine.
The drier died after 3 years. Everything else worked by it didn't heat, so, it didn't dry.
I called someone to try to fix it, and they said the heat pump was gone and that they see a lot of that. He advised me to buy one that used the old technology of heating the air through an electric resistance. According to the repairman, those are way more reliable (problem is that, while I can live with the increased energy consumption, they need an external exhaust for the moisture).
I've seen toasters from the ~1930s that seem to be virtually indestructible, and which will still burn your toast just as well as any toaster from the 2020s. I can't imagine current appliances lasting 90+ years.
Smart toaster ovens may change that equation a bit, both in terms of not burning your toast (due to cameras and various sensors and control systems) and also with even more rapidly accelerated obsolescence as apps and cloud services stop working.
Thank God for American Hpme Warranty, it actually does pay at least two-fold over 5-year worth of its premium costs.
This is not a shill but a testimony of the ridiculous lifespan of dishwasher, refrigerators, stove, garbage disposals, washing machines, dryer, and air conditioner condensor unit.
EDIT: and a water heater. House was built in 1990.
> Thank God for American Hpme Warranty, it actually does pay at least two-fold over 5-year worth of its premium costs.
Hah, your experience was very different to mine, then.
Bought a house two years ago, realtor purchased an AHW policy.
I knew the AC was on its last legs from inspection, and no problem, since it was an older 80% old refrigerant system, probably closing on 30 years old. Figured it could wait one summer, in between all the other purchases with a new home.
That year, Seattle decided to have a heat wave. Maybe not much for those in Phoenix, but four days in a row of 105F+. That's still hot.
And it's even hotter when you have no AC, as ours died a couple of hours into day 1.
So I call the HWC. They "are having trouble" finding someone for "emergency service". Their idea of "emergency service" is "we have a company that will be out there in four WEEKS".
So I found someone who could come out that day, for a surcharge. Reasonable. And the AC was dead. But this company were nice - the tech said "no promises, no commitments" and he did some shifty magic and got it running for about six more hours before it was permanently to the graveyard.
So we started getting quotes for a new HVAC system.
Responses from AHW:
- we won't pay if you don't use our suppliers
- we won't pay if you don't choose from our list of models (which were all low end, 80%, 1 stage systems)
- even if you use our supplier, we won't pay above $X. If they quote you higher, the difference is on you.
- if you used another contractor for ANY maintenance work on the existing system, we won't pay
- if the maintenance schedule wasn't followed (whether you owned the system/property at the time), we won't pay
There's a common phrase in each of those statements.
on the other hand, my 10 year old mac mini still runs fine, although it no longer supports the latest OSX and many of the more recent APP's. But as a media/entertainment device, light duty file server, and even coding the occasional throwaway program, it comfortably holds its ground.
I'm not sure why you think that is remarkable. My daily driver is a homebrew PC that I put together myself (the second PC I've ever built). It can't be upgraded to Windows 11 but runs Windows 11 fine, runs all modern software fine including games though only at the lowest graphics setting.
FWIW my parents bought me a washer and a dryer for college for $100 a piece in the 1990s. I replaced them 25 years later because the washer was starting to walk. The dryer was fine. I could have easily fixed the washer. That should be the standard.
Interesting to note is that the rated life time (1,000 hours) stayed the same after the cartel dissolved. Even the ones available today have the rated life time in the same order of magnitude: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/light-bulbs/light-technolo...
Sure, the cartel existed. At the same time, the engineering trade-offs are still there.
Not in XXI century C.E.
If they wanted to make appliances last longer they could do it. Simply they push you to buy more. Which is in the exact opposite direction.
I provide software to car restoration industry. Absolutely this … modern cars are becoming paperweights much quicker than their previous generations. Now are they safer/quieter/more efficient, absolutely ! Are they in landfill less than 10 years, absolutely…
I mean, it's cool to pin it on manufacturers trying to increase margins, or on "planned obsolescence" - but a lot of it is our doing. We're willingly enabling it. There are manufacturers that make simple and serviceable appliances; for example, most Frigidaire fridges don't have cool-looking displays, wifi connectivity, and other bells and whistles. But how many Frigidaire products are sold every year, compared to LG or Samsung? These brands are not only loaded to the brim with "smart" features, but many technicians refuse to work on them due to poor design and poor availability of parts. So when they break after 2-5 years, they are destined for the dump.
This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips. But when shopping, we select the appliance with the most futuristic LCD and that plugs into Alexa to notify us that the laundry is done...
Life cycle ownership: Just like handling hazmat in industrial processes is considered the ownership of the entity using the materials, so too should the waste stream resulting from the end of life of the product. Encourage products that are easy to dis-assemble into mostly parts that can be usefully recycled (used by someone else!)
TCO and Right to Repair assistance. All service manuals and instructions should be public domain. Parts with various cryptographic keys and enclaves must also be serviceable by future end users; physical access (and possibly installed jumpers or other easily replaced parts) to reset and enroll in a new security domain must be part of the design. (I would like to see PCs ship with a 'jumper' connected to a physical key position. Enabling that jumper would E.G. allow BIOS updates, including changing the installed / enabled list of allowed signing authorities, including locally provided options. Empower the end user.)
Firmware blobs for the various chips on a product should also be submitted to the copyright office(s) and ownership of the product constitutes a valid license to obtain a new copy of the blob (for programming / replacement of any chips).
> This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips.
I don't feel this way at all. I don't know how to access information about products that I know to be unbiased. I can certainly find comparison websites and blog posts, some of which I'm sure are unbiased, but it's not clear to be how to reliably ascertain which is which.
"This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips."
I disagree, there's lots of 'information' at your fingertips, but not knowledge. It's really a ton of work to find well designed and built appliances, that can be repaired etc, but that also have modern efficiency and essential features.
You can no longer necessarily even trust the expensive brand names, as many of them seem to be cashing-in on their, um, cachet, and reputation, and churning out similar junk to the rest of them.
"but many technicians refuse to work on them due to poor design and poor availability of parts. So when they break after 2-5 years,"
That's the point - only junk fridges would need to be worked on in the first 5 years. I know if a freezer from the 80s and a fridge from the 60s that have never seen a technician in their lives. At this rate, that one from the 60s will probably have a longer lifespan than I will.
> for example, most Frigidaire fridges don't have cool-looking displays, wifi connectivity, and other bells and whistles. But how many Frigidaire products are sold every year, compared to LG or Samsung? These brands are not only loaded to the brim with "smart" features, but many technicians refuse to work on them due to poor design and poor availability of parts. So when they break after 2-5 years, they are destined for the dump.
I quickly searched HomeDepot.com and see at least 10 LG and 10 Samsung refrigerators without “bells and whistles”.
The downstream reality of globalization and JIT. Push domestic labor overseas to eek out more profits, the products reduce in quality, and you get the surface-level appearance of making more money. Really, though, you're just long-term increasing the cost of everything else because what you save in labor, you lose in shipping costs, returns, customer support, and inflation of your national currency (more money printing to offset employment/entitlement deficits created by off-shoring).
Its not really the move overseas itself that reduce in quality, its the conscious choice to both use cheaper materials and provide less training to that cheaper labor.
spking|2 years ago
alkonaut|2 years ago
The worst offenders aren't large appliances, it's the cheap crap. If a store sells me an electric toothbrush for $79 and it breaks after a month shouln't just be required to replace it, it has to be worse than that to make products where even 1/1000 fail. And the result of such action would be that electric tooth brushes soon cost $200 instead of $79. But that's a good thing.
When I browse appliances or electronics, I want to know the lifespan. Not just the warranty. I want to know how long people actually use this particular product. And it can't just be based on some Amazon review system, it needs to be reliable and cover every seller. Like car mileage I need to have a decent idea about what to expect. And even if just 10% of product have this rating - that's also a good thing. It would mean less churn because manufacturers would be reluctant to replace an officially labeled product with a new one.
So we'd have longer lasting, rarely replaced models, more expensive products. Which is what we need.
dist-epoch|2 years ago
At $70 per hour it doesn't take long for repair to become more expensive than a new item.
johannes1234321|2 years ago
An approach for this is to switch from owning to renting.
Say you rent your washing machine for 1000 runs.
Consequence then is that you have predictable cost per run and since the vendor is responsible for maintenance and deposition, thus they have an interest in making the machine repairable and recyclable.
magicalhippo|2 years ago
It covers anything that's not a wear-item breaking due to normal use. The shop who sold it has the burden of proof in case they want to claim it's been exposed to non-normal usage.
The shop has the right to try to repair the damage, but after two times (for the same issue), you have the right to get your money back.
Now surviving 5 years doesn't mean the thing will last 20. But it should at least keep the crap away.
[1]: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/cause-for-complaint/
rightbyte|2 years ago
And I have no clue about what dishwasher is crap or not, and they do.
I wonder what amount of years would be good for an absolute guarantee. Maybe something like 10 years and then 5 years of some limited sort?
The guarantee probably need some odometer limit though to prevent commercial or multi housing usage on the long guarantee.
b112|2 years ago
One can also look at past judgements.
So far, the logic is that an expensive fridge should last 10 to 20 years. Same for other appliances. And if companies give the run-around, those costs are added to judgement costs too.
These laws, such as Norway's and this one in Quebec, are vital. And to anyone saying they care about the environment, creating a massive appliance like this, and then making it purposefully bork early to kick a replacement, is absurd. The environmental cost of production, shipping, and then trashing such an appliance is silly, just to pad the pocket book.
Note: I'm the first to say profit = awesome. Let the market decide. But LG (for example) is famous for having a compressor issue with fridges, to the extent that there have been class action lawsuits against them. And on top of that, having an inability to get any parts... so people cannot even get fridges fixed! Replacing fridges every 2 years (an example) instead of once a decade is probably incredibly bad for the environment... for no valid reason!
From:
https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/en/consumer/good-service/goods/ap...
What is a “reasonable lifetime”?
The reasonable lifetime warranty provides that an appliance must serve for normal use for a reasonable period of time. However, the law does not specify, for example, that a stove must have a lifetime of 10 years. Why? Because several factors, such as the price paid, the contract, and the conditions of use, must be taken into account to determine the reasonable lifetime of the item. Thus, a $700 stove cannot be expected to last as long as another one with the same features, but that costs $1,500.
Also, add to the above another bit of logic I've heard. If you buy a clothes washer, and use it 3x every single day, obviously that might fall into "non-consumer use" or "excessive use", thus shortening the above "reasonable lifetime". Meanwhile, if you're a bachelor that uses the washer once a week, the inverse is true! It should last longer.
switch007|2 years ago
We have 6 years in the UK but only in the first 6 months is a defect assumed to be a manufacturing defect, which is naturally the period with your strongest rights and when it’s easy to get a repair or replacement. After that, you need to argue quite a lot
Suppafly|2 years ago
If a few larger markets would start having similar laws, it'd essentially fix the problem for the rest of us. I imagine currently Norway is small enough that manufacturers can just keep making crap and eat the cost of Norwegian returns.
bfdm|2 years ago
badpun|2 years ago
moandcompany|2 years ago
The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going to sell another one unless it's to another (new) customer or purchased as a gift for someone by their existing loyal customer. So then they start entering into new product areas and eventually end up compromising quality.
As other have mentioned, this is becoming particularly annoying with home appliances and cars. "They don't make them like they used to" are true words.
kevin_thibedeau|2 years ago
Appliance manufacturers survived most of the 20th century making reliable products for a smaller global population. On the other hand, it's hard to have never ending quarterly profit growth without planned obsolescence to create extra demand that normally wouldn't exist.
JumpCrisscross|2 years ago
Servicing. High-end appliances seem to last just fine.
saiya-jin|2 years ago
Yet reality is more like - completely new markets are opening, new rich people look for quality good brands, or father happy with his knife for 20 years will buy another one for his son. Or Miele, brand completely built on just its perceived reliability. They cost 2-3x more compared to even Bosch/Siemens, without any unique features apart from this.
The problem is, as almost everywhere in corporations - C-suite bonus incentives. Quick milking without care about long term strategies or brand name is the name of the game.
tuyiown|2 years ago
j45|2 years ago
Most people don’t, or don’t know how to make their appliances last much longer.
For example the minimum of maintenance for water tanks, or changing air filters more often when your home has AC.
ptek|2 years ago
Who wants some iFridge/iOven when the equipment made in the 60s was built to survive two zombies apocalypse and one nuclear war and won't connect to the internet for a firmware update.
Also the CIA can't hack your fridge so you get salmonella from your chicken because they have access to your shopping patterns from the super market.
NackerHughes|2 years ago
Older appliances may cost more to run but it’s possible they pay themselves off by virtue of not having to re-buy them every few years.
Speculation, of course. I wonder if anyone’s done the math on this.
ejb999|2 years ago
Not sure you can buy one like anymore.
XorNot|2 years ago
Most of my appliances were bought recently, none has anything like this.
iio7|2 years ago
He has mentioned that they have software that can calculate the average lifespan of the finished product by entering the different components that goes into the product (like this piece has this amount of iron, this amount of tin, etc).
Based upon this the software can calculate the lifespan very precisely and determine if they have made it "too good". If it's too good the quality is decreased on purpose in order to reduce the lifespan such that people will buy more. Other testing goes into the equation as well, but enough data has been collected over the years that it can be calculated/simulated.
mjevans|2 years ago
stdbrouw|2 years ago
petra|2 years ago
theyeenzbeanz|2 years ago
The original one had what looked like a custom/in house engineered motor with a solid structure and beefy battery. The new one had those cheap toy motors that cost a few pennies each along with a flimsy frame and tiny battery to match.
karlshea|2 years ago
Put some thread lock on it and it’s been totally fine since, but that seems like it’s intentionally planned to fail. Good job, Philips.
diogenescynic|2 years ago
Suppafly|2 years ago
stdbrouw|2 years ago
So, unless she is lying, there is actually no story?
inejge|2 years ago
Suppafly|2 years ago
lettergram|2 years ago
My father was a tool maker (top of his profession, top shop at Molex for a time). He and everyone he knew had such pride in their work. They also knew who would use their products. They cared about the quality and worked hard to deliver. It was a personal pride thing, as much as anything else.
When you export manufacturing, people don’t know who they’re building for. Nor does near slave labor in some places create quality.
Not to mention, companies are trying to maximize profit. To contrast, the owner of molex at one point heard my dad needed a surgery. He came down on the shop floor, called him over and sent my dad (and our family) to the Mayo Clinic for 2 weeks to have the surgery done (all expenses paid). It wasn’t for profit, it was for a good business.
janalsncm|2 years ago
In a way you can think of PO as a sort of subscription. If my AirPods last 3 years on average they cost me around $25 per year to own.
2143|2 years ago
I don't know how often this happens in Western mega corporations (which is probably why you're surprised).
And you obviously haven't been to Japan. Yes, long hours, but your employer takes care of most aspects of your life. Healthcare, apartment, marriage, your kids education, everything. See this article by patio11: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
In the non-crappy businesses in India other people — coworkers, bosses, etc — taking care of you is routine. And — okay this is a terrible example — in the unfortunate situation that somebody dies, for instance, trust me, random people just help the family with funeral and stuff like that.
What I'm trying to say is this: the rest of the world isn't filled with morons and cattle.
Oh and by the way, across the world people want quality products. Even people from — gasp — the global South. We too want our fridges and washing machines and TVs and cars and everything else to last forever.
frellus|2 years ago
On the LG side, I feel like the quality has really gone downhill over the years. I had a GE washer which gave me 13 years of life -- not bad for $400. I replaced it with an LG now and already regretting it -- complicated controls which seem somewhat redundant, more electronics instead of just knobs to turn.
Also bought an LG microwave. Kept blowing my circuit (and yes, it was rated for 15A and I have 20A circuits). Replaced with smaller model, still Chinese garbage, but less complicated. It's worked perfectly.
ak_111|2 years ago
jaimex2|2 years ago
I recently bought the Gaggia Classic Pro coffee machine for this very reason. You can get into and fix anything in this machine in under 5 minutes.
Suppafly|2 years ago
I can buy a lot of $20 sale price black and decker coffee pots for the $500 that repairable one costs though. There should be a sweet spot between junk and bougie high end stuff.
giantg2|2 years ago
api_or_ipa|2 years ago
Labor used to be relatively more abundant compared to capital. In these conditions, servicing an older machine makes economic sense.
With capital becoming relatively cheap compared to labor, servicing becomes more expensive. It then becomes cheaper to simply replace an appliance, utilizing efficiencies of scale unlocked on the factory floor though greater automation. Repairmen don’t enjoy the same efficiency gains because diagnosing and repairing an issue is still fundamentally a manual process.
1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_share
ccorcos|2 years ago
It’s classic greenwashing - a more efficient fridge is obviously better, right? Except they use extremely thin oil so it dies in a few years.
Another interesting narrative is how Segway shut down the production of their scooter because they were so well made that they weren’t selling enough! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23621279
It’s a weird world and I wish I could just have my cake and eat it too.
switch007|2 years ago
It’s getting even more ridiculous these days. “Green underlay “ which is just recycled plastic. “Green clothing” oh also recycled plastic.
poulsbohemian|2 years ago
And then there's Bosch, etc... now, I'd like to buy a Bosch, but my current partner doesn't want to spend the money, she likes buying outlet / second-hand / feeling like she got a deal, which is a problem. But - even the top end consumer Bosch is relatively small and I'm not sure the plastic bits are any more durable. I do like the dual compressor system though.
And then there's dishwashers... oh Maytag, how you've fallen thanks to VC/ PE...
Freedom2|2 years ago
jacknews|2 years ago
Have you documented any of the builds?
I would be very interested in open-source plans like this, and joining (or helping form) a community around the idea of appliances built to last, or more importantly, using modular standard parts and designed for repair.
larsrc|2 years ago
wtcactus|2 years ago
The drier died after 3 years. Everything else worked by it didn't heat, so, it didn't dry.
I called someone to try to fix it, and they said the heat pump was gone and that they see a lot of that. He advised me to buy one that used the old technology of heating the air through an electric resistance. According to the repairman, those are way more reliable (problem is that, while I can live with the increased energy consumption, they need an external exhaust for the moisture).
lozenge|2 years ago
musicale|2 years ago
Smart toaster ovens may change that equation a bit, both in terms of not burning your toast (due to cameras and various sensors and control systems) and also with even more rapidly accelerated obsolescence as apps and cloud services stop working.
godzillabrennus|2 years ago
csa|2 years ago
dhc02|2 years ago
egberts1|2 years ago
They have been given cancer!
Thank God for American Hpme Warranty, it actually does pay at least two-fold over 5-year worth of its premium costs.
This is not a shill but a testimony of the ridiculous lifespan of dishwasher, refrigerators, stove, garbage disposals, washing machines, dryer, and air conditioner condensor unit.
EDIT: and a water heater. House was built in 1990.
FireBeyond|2 years ago
Hah, your experience was very different to mine, then.
Bought a house two years ago, realtor purchased an AHW policy.
I knew the AC was on its last legs from inspection, and no problem, since it was an older 80% old refrigerant system, probably closing on 30 years old. Figured it could wait one summer, in between all the other purchases with a new home.
That year, Seattle decided to have a heat wave. Maybe not much for those in Phoenix, but four days in a row of 105F+. That's still hot.
And it's even hotter when you have no AC, as ours died a couple of hours into day 1.
So I call the HWC. They "are having trouble" finding someone for "emergency service". Their idea of "emergency service" is "we have a company that will be out there in four WEEKS".
So I found someone who could come out that day, for a surcharge. Reasonable. And the AC was dead. But this company were nice - the tech said "no promises, no commitments" and he did some shifty magic and got it running for about six more hours before it was permanently to the graveyard.
So we started getting quotes for a new HVAC system.
Responses from AHW:
- we won't pay if you don't use our suppliers
- we won't pay if you don't choose from our list of models (which were all low end, 80%, 1 stage systems)
- even if you use our supplier, we won't pay above $X. If they quote you higher, the difference is on you.
- if you used another contractor for ANY maintenance work on the existing system, we won't pay
- if the maintenance schedule wasn't followed (whether you owned the system/property at the time), we won't pay
There's a common phrase in each of those statements.
fhe|2 years ago
hasbot|2 years ago
larsrc|2 years ago
Clubber|2 years ago
perfunctory|2 years ago
duckmysick|2 years ago
Sure, the cartel existed. At the same time, the engineering trade-offs are still there.
notorandit|2 years ago
j45|2 years ago
The induction stove that boils water in 40 seconds?
diogenescynic|2 years ago
RowanH|2 years ago
martinky24|2 years ago
smitty1e|2 years ago
therealdkz|2 years ago
raziel2701|2 years ago
quatrefoil|2 years ago
This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips. But when shopping, we select the appliance with the most futuristic LCD and that plugs into Alexa to notify us that the laundry is done...
mjevans|2 years ago
Life cycle ownership: Just like handling hazmat in industrial processes is considered the ownership of the entity using the materials, so too should the waste stream resulting from the end of life of the product. Encourage products that are easy to dis-assemble into mostly parts that can be usefully recycled (used by someone else!)
TCO and Right to Repair assistance. All service manuals and instructions should be public domain. Parts with various cryptographic keys and enclaves must also be serviceable by future end users; physical access (and possibly installed jumpers or other easily replaced parts) to reset and enroll in a new security domain must be part of the design. (I would like to see PCs ship with a 'jumper' connected to a physical key position. Enabling that jumper would E.G. allow BIOS updates, including changing the installed / enabled list of allowed signing authorities, including locally provided options. Empower the end user.)
Firmware blobs for the various chips on a product should also be submitted to the copyright office(s) and ownership of the product constitutes a valid license to obtain a new copy of the blob (for programming / replacement of any chips).
dryanau|2 years ago
I don't feel this way at all. I don't know how to access information about products that I know to be unbiased. I can certainly find comparison websites and blog posts, some of which I'm sure are unbiased, but it's not clear to be how to reliably ascertain which is which.
jacknews|2 years ago
I disagree, there's lots of 'information' at your fingertips, but not knowledge. It's really a ton of work to find well designed and built appliances, that can be repaired etc, but that also have modern efficiency and essential features.
You can no longer necessarily even trust the expensive brand names, as many of them seem to be cashing-in on their, um, cachet, and reputation, and churning out similar junk to the rest of them.
abdullahkhalids|2 years ago
Social coordination problems are solved by coordinated action - 99% of time that is law.
giantg2|2 years ago
That's the point - only junk fridges would need to be worked on in the first 5 years. I know if a freezer from the 80s and a fridge from the 60s that have never seen a technician in their lives. At this rate, that one from the 60s will probably have a longer lifespan than I will.
lotsofpulp|2 years ago
I quickly searched HomeDepot.com and see at least 10 LG and 10 Samsung refrigerators without “bells and whistles”.
duckman1|2 years ago
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rglover|2 years ago
pvdoom|2 years ago