Except they're terribly inefficient and use shit like freon
Also, a number of them will still fail quickly. Survivorship bias.
And they'll cost $3500
Or you'll create something that is genuinely better with good longevity and then discover you'll have next to no sales growth since once somebody buys it, they never need to replace it.
You know if I created a buisness myself and had no shareholders demanding quarterly profit increases, that would be okay.
If it made 1 million in profit after 10 years and then needed to be shuttered that's fine by me.
I imagine this would make an individual quite wealthy for their lifetime. We just think it's unviable because we've been tricked into believing that a buisness must grow forever to be successful
Hmmm, a state run industry in communist east Berlin that failed in 1990. It's almost as if their business hit a wall when they couldn't expand their market through exports. Surely there couldn't have been any world changing events happening in that town in the latter days of 1989 that might have played a larger role in the demise of a state run business.
What if we use the quality of the past with safety and efficiency of today
Your appliance will cost 4-10x more. There’s no magic to it. Appliances were like opera. Made for the rich
Do the appliances the rich currently buy follow this rule or do they just get fancier low durability goods
There's a whole world of super high-end appliances you've never even heard of because you're not worth marketing to.
Yeah but I’m wondering if they’re meaningfully more durable or repairable versus if they’re just happy to eat the massive bills to fix or replace them when shit happens
They are. Usually for commercial purposes, if your business depends on your fridge working, you will get a reliable fridge.
However as of today, you don't need to spend 10k on an appliance to have a good one. Miele, BSH and Liebherr all have good appliances, long warranties, they sell replacement parts and manuals for DIY.
Probably
Could be worth buying something fancy if it’s easy or cheap to fix and would actually last a lifetime
But I have a feeling they’re just expensive and fancy and not actually gonna last much longer unless it’s commercial grade
I’ve had plenty of regular appliances last well past their warranties so I’m skeptical the super fancy stuff I’ve never heard of it is much different in terms of lifetime unless it’s commercial grade
They have people take care of their needs. They dont need to worry about it.
So you're saying we need a start up that sells people.
It depends. If you are a show off that only cares about aesthetics, then you're paying for looks, not quality.
In my experience, a great dishwasher is worth the money. I had a Miele that was absolutely silent. Not whisper quiet. Silent.
A good, high quality, refrigerator is also worth it. You don't know your fridge is shit until you have one that keeps your food fresh, and doesn't freeze or wilt your produce.
If you are not a baker, or someone who uses the over on a regular basis, the in my opinion any low tech electric stove will do the trick. Induction top if you like precise temp controls. Getting an oven right is very difficult and normally where you see the well deserved price jump.
Reliable appliances already exist. They cost 10x what the cheap stuff costs and very, very few people buy them because “why would I get this washing machine for $5000 when I can get this other one with more features for $500?”.
TBF, there are lot of the “10x as expensive” appliances that are absolute garbage, have awful reliability and are very expensive to repair. The “best” would be to buy commercial kitchen gear, but it isn’t pretty enamel colors or designer chic. Of course there are still a few reliable standouts like the typical Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but like you said, a hand mixer can be had for $50, and Kitchen Aids can cost $500+.
So much of the world's problems comes from that if you have one product that 8.99 and the other thats 9.99 everyone will buy the first one without question
Yes and no. Yes they should build those old patents in a general sense. No they should not follow those patents exactly because they contained things like asbestos and lead.
You can already buy appliances like that.
These are the top rated brands by Consumer Reports. The top rated brand by reliability? Their site...doesn't seem to list prices. That's never a good sign..But a search of Google shopping indicates that their fridges start at $7000 and up. Quality brands exist. They just cost 3-10 times the cheaper brands.
I was a subscriber to Consumer Reports for years and trusted them implicitly because they seemed so thorough and rigorous. Then they did reviews on a subject with which I am intimately familiar (it was computer related), and I was shocked at how badly they fumbled just about everything. I've also seen some really dubious ratings on high ticket items like cars that I knew were not great, so I take their ratings with grain of salt anymore.
The fact that Whirlpool is even on this list makes it a joke to me. I will say I've had a Miele dishwasher in the past and it was fucking awesome, and have heard great things about a lot of Bosch appliances. But LG and Whirlpool frequently put out trash appliances.
I always say this when a question like this comes up:
Find a repair person for what you're looking to buy and ask them which brands and models last the longest and are easiest to get parts for and repair in your country. They are the people that actually know the answer.
Good quality shit still exists, you just need to pay for it, and if you remember the Terry Pratchett boots story, you'll know paying more up front is going to save you money in the long run
GNU Terry Pratchett
A man is not dead while his name is still spoken
😭
Yeah people don't realize that appliances were a LOT more expensive back then too, especially as a proportion of income. A washer dryer set in 1959 cost $380, at a time when the median household income was only $5,400. That means to buy a washer dryer set, they would have to spend 7% of their pre-tax income. Currently, the cheapest washer dryer set will set you back $1300, and the median household income is $83,000, so it's about 1.5% of the annual household income. If you're willing to pay what people were proportionally willing to pay in 1959, you can still buy a washer dryer set that will last a lifetime. Most people just aren't.
There was a startup that wanted to build exactly that, a washing machine that would last a lifetime.
Ya... That just won't work, at least here in the states. Those old appliances were great and lasted forever but they consumed a massive amount of energy, they would never pass federal regulations now a days.
Also fridges from the 50s had a tiny tendency to explode from time to time.
I'm sure it's possible to fix those issues without reducing its lifespan to one day over its warranty.
I wonder if anyone has ever talked about how difficult it is to challenge capitalist imperatives while capitalists own all the factories and their supply chains.
just a reminder that survivorship bias is a huge thing. There have been shitty products from back then too. Many. We just don't see them now, because only the few good products have survived. The same happens today.
Its not all planned obsolescence and not all obsolescence is bad. Imagine having a 40 year old fridge that doesn't cool shit and burn 3 times the energy.
2 tips for good quality products now: end capitalism and spend money on the right products (not just convenience) and the right people to repair them.
Something that most people fail to do on their tools and appliances is maintenance. My house is full of cheap appliances that are pushing 15 or so years of life and running great, but they require work. Filters need to be changed on dishwashers and laundry machines, people never check these often enough. For example, most people I know don't own an air compressor, which means they never fully clean out all the motor killing dust. Computers, vacuum filters, air purifiers, fridge compressors, all these items need to be blasted with air, way more than you can get from a little can of air like IT people love to use.
Get the proper tools to maintain your things, and even the cheap stuff will last a while.
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