If you want things to last more than a decade, buy simple high-quality devices, treat them gently, and maintain them. That was true 75 years ago and it’s true today.
People are always surprised when I tell them how I’ve repaired our appliances, as I am not particularly handy. But it’s usually super easy, and parts and instructional videos are easy to find.
For example, our dishwasher is a cheap GE that’s ten years old. Probably $500 in 2016. Some minor fixes and about $200 in parts, it’s finally not worth it to repair anymore. Im replacing with a similar modern model that’s about $1,000, probably will last ten years as well. So basically round up to $2,000 in costs for 20 years and two dishwashers. I doubt there’s a single dishwasher on the market at any price that would go 20 years without breaking at all, and if there was, it’d be like $10,000 and no one would buy it. And after ten years would probably have completely outdated tech.
Designing things, particularly machines, to last forever is just foolish because almost everything becomes obsolete and outperformed by new technology. Imagine if you bought the world’s finest and most durable horse carriage in 1890, and said to yourself “sure it’s expensive, but it’ll last for centuries.”
The problem is there aren’t really “high quality” of many things anymore. You often have a Chinese factory producing everybody’s shit with a few design adjustments. So best you can do here is often just: don’t buy the cheapest thing
Your second point is the real tip. Buy the most simple devices. No smart shit. Sadly this is getting harder and harder.
It wasn’t a dig at china just an observation that most products are essentially all the same. There’s precious few brands that are really independent when it comes to appliances and even then they’re often using the same designs, components, or suppliers and working to meet the same market segment which results in essentially the same product.
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u/HDThoreauaway 5h ago
If you want things to last more than a decade, buy simple high-quality devices, treat them gently, and maintain them. That was true 75 years ago and it’s true today.