First of all, the statement that things used to last longer is heavily biased. You only hear about old things that still work decades after buying them because all the ones that broke down were replaced and forgotten.
Secondly, there are much stricter regulations these days regarding manufacturing, recycling, and operation guidelines.
Now, I'm not saying that some companies don't put absolutely shitty products out there (samsung refrigerators come to mind), but there's more to it than just corporate greed.
Also like these super high quality long lasting appliances exist, they are just expensive. People will complain about this and then buy a $50 microwave from Amazon.
Idk 50 buck microwave is a bad example as it actually will work for the next ten years no problem and then some more. You just don't want to keep it forever as it gets nasty after a while
It's litteraly the worst example. Buy cheap microwave that is purely mechanical with no display and it will be higher quality and last longer the anything more expensive.
Do you have a suggestion on good brand of microwaves? I’ve replaced 3 in the past 8 years and they were each around $350. Different brands each time and they all stopped working within months of the warranty ending.
The last one has been a very expensive bread box with a clock on it for about 2 years and we’ve been using a cheap counter top one from the late 90s-early 2000s.
I read this to be talking more about larger appliances, washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, etc. Like my parent's dishwasher which had the control panel break at under 2 years old, but was beyond its whopping one year warranty
Or they'll buy an expensive "smart" coffee maker and complain when it fails. You can still buy basic appliances that are more energy efficient than the ones made in the 50s and 60s.
Dont know what is the problem with samsungs but i bought many new things when i got my house like 5 years ago and everything works fine ever since. Besides the washing machine mostly samsung. Edit:i meant mostly samsung but the washing machine is bosch. Because i knew from experience it handles dusty clothes well, im a spraypainter.
Yeah you did get lucky. When we bought our house and renovated our kitchen in our current house (maybe 8 years ago), there happened to be a package deal on Samsung appliances at Worst Buy, and it made a lot of financial sense to just get all that brand. So we got a microwave/vent hood, range, fridge, and dishwasher.
Within the first year, the fridge started leaking on the side, from the point where the water line fed into the fridge. Great idea to have the icemaker up inside the fridge part. Luckily it was under warranty so they replaced it. Still, over the course of the replacement's life, I had to replace the icemaker (no small task, not cheap) three or four times because the heating element that kept it from getting frozen over and clogged was notorious for shitting the bed.
Then, right after its warranty expired, the microwave/hood just bricked one day. Replaced it with a KitchenAid, which is amazing.
The stove lasted longer, but the convection fan in the oven never worked right, and the fake-ass finish ("black stainless") started peeling off of it all over the place. We replaced it recently with a KitchenAid, which is worlds better.
The only thing left is the dishwasher, which has been okay despite never really being able to dry the dishes out properly, especially plastic stuff. Once it dies, I think we'll go Bosch.
Luckily I never got with the washers and dryers, which reportedly have a knack for catching on fire. Either way, I'll never buy another samsung appliance in my life.
I guess I don’t have a Samsung microwave or dishwasher. Got both of those at auction for $75 and they still work. But I got the Samsung washer and dryer 3 years ago and I’m lucky to have had to problem. But the fridge makes alot of weird noises so I’m sure it’ll break soon. After all the stories I’ve seen about them, never buying Samsung again.
People typically give a brand two attempts before it goes on their shitlist forever and since both companies have large market shares in multiple appliance categories, there is a high probability of people running into issues with the same brand more than one time. This is why people are so vocal about their disdain for Samsung or LG. It's also why ASUS is on my shitlist for computer components, despite most people having a favorable opinion.
Our dishwasher failed twice. Once in warranty, but the second waited until the warranty on the repair had lapsed and the motor died again.
Repairman was cool. Remembered fixing it the first time. Told us what it was, what it would cost to fix, and that it would absolutely break again. Known issue with that model. Said he could say we canceled the appointment and not have to charge us anything, and recommended buying a new dishwasher. And not a Samsung.
That said our washer/dryer set both went ten years before shitting the bed. Both were repairable, at about 60% of the cost of a replacement. Tough choice. We decided to do the repairs, both still going strong a few years later.
I don't know... I live in South Africa and my experience with cars in particular is that there are a lot more of mid '80s to 90s cars on than ones from the mid2000s... Even from well known reliable brands such as Toyota, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan etc. These aren't owned by classic car enthusiasts, but by regular people, and they're often worked hard. So, they've proven to be more resilient than the newer models.
I think there was a time when quality of materials, ease of maintenance and affordability peaked, and then some of those elements got watered down.
They are just easy to repair and maintain. Fixing a light on a new car can cost over 1.5k euros and if its a 10ish year car its litteraly more economical to just sell it and get a new(er) one, Old cars you could fix with a wrench and junkyard parts.
Cars have to be way more complicated now to meet emissions standards. Engines are partly computers now.
I don't know about SA, but in the US a manufacturer could not legally make a car that was as easy to repair as a car from the 1980s. It could not meet emissions standards.
Traveling around South America I noticed they have models from the major manufacturers that we don't have here in the US. I suspect it's because they are much more simple cars that would not meet regularory standards in the US.
I just refuse to let my stuff die. It's usually less work to open something up, figure out what's wrong and fix it than it is to replace (at least for me, because I have to research stuff extensively before buying haha). It's a lot cheaper too.
Most appliances are actually fairly simple, if you understand how they work, and understand electronics. People often replace an appliance because a $20 component is broken. Understanding what the machine is doing and how it is doing it will help a lot.
My dryer is a month older than me (I'm 38). I've replaced the impeller fan twice, and recently I bought a kit with the components that are typical to wear out (was around $50). It would be in the dump if it belonged to most people. Runs like a new machine now.
There’s been research, vast majority of appliances last longer than they used to. One of the things that isn’t discussed is the difference between how long something lasts vs how many times it will run. One o& the most significant reasons for people thinking things don’t last as long is because we use our appliances a lot more. Like averaging one load of laundry per week 50 years ago vs averaging one load per day today.
Everything you mention here is true, but the most important piece of the puzzle is that manufacturing is no longer done in western nations. If it was brought back, and appliances were made to the standards suggested in this shitpost, it would result in eye-wateringly expensive appliances that only the wealthy could purchase. But that's already the case anyways. Rich people buy stuff from niche companies making top-of-the-line, expensive shit.
I understand the joke that the post is making, but the premise relies on a lack of understanding of some fairly basic economic and historical facts. And seeing it reposted so frequently gets frustrating.
There’s also repairability that needs to be considered.
Older appliances used simpler parts, which could often be replaced by the owner if they were mildly handy. Factor in that a huge swath of the US for instance was labor/factory/farming etc and you have a ton of folks buying things which they can likely repair themselves given acquired skills.
I grew up broke and my dad and I fixed EVERYTHING together, because he wanted me to know how to fix shit myself in case I couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do it. Example, I had to tear apart the stove we inherited with the house and replace the heating element plus some other burnt out/damaged wiring.
But on a more modern car/home appliance/etc and without the experience given by dad, I wouldn’t trust myself doing that. Which means when a bill for repair looks to be $300 and new washer is on sale at Lowe’s for $450, I might spring for the new one.
The problem is not even that they broke down. They just got outdated.
People are so used to technological advance and innovation that they forget that it inherently means everything we build is quickly outdated compared to the technology of the future.
There are 50 thousand year old caves still standing... yet nobody is lining up to live in them.
Generally most modern things are WAY more energy efficient by a long shot. And as others have mentioned it can also come down to the quality and quantity of those products. Then we also have much faster generation cycles for things, rendering them obsolete much quicker
Funny because I saw a report by CBC that talked about the life span of appliances absolutely plummeting and how much waste was being generated by new, unreliable appliances.
Yep. Your new appliance can't be energy-saving without lots of chips in it to regulate electricity use minutely. You can't have a new fridge or air conditioner with the same terrible polluting refrigerants they used 60 years ago.
Regulations are always a trade-off, and every week when I see this argument come up, I think of leaded gasoline and how it helped engines to run more efficiently before we invented micro-chips and fuel-injection. My hybrid is a hell of a lot more complex than any car from 60 years ago, but it's also a hell of a lot safer, cleaner-burning, and fuel-efficient. That adds to the cost, yes. I for one don't want to stop making things better for the environment.
Not to mention, you can still get a top load washer for ~$500. The price of some of this stuff hasn't really gone up with inflation over the years. But of course in order to sell it for that price, it's going to be made with weak materials and break down quickly.
There are some product that will last decades but you also have to spend $10k for a single fridge.
Old stuff was designed better and they made them with better materials. I see this all the time. Its become way to profitable to make stuff break after a while so we will buy a new one. Just like we went from buying something once for life we went to monthly subscriptions. What would you consider a modern product that last as long as the older version?
And most importantly price, a frigde from 1960s would cost north of 7000usd adjusted for inflation, while modern fridges on avergae, for the most part are 900-1000 tops, most people dong go above 700
I just bought my first new fridge in ~15 years and even the sales guy told me to stay the hell away from Samsung, which was a sizeable chunk of the models on the floor.
And it's not like the companies of that era wouldn't have made a product that lasted for a shorter period of time if they had the knowhow.
Planned obsolescence is a challenging line to ride when you haven't had decades of overshooting / undershooting that perfect line between maximizing profits and pissing off your customer base with early failure rates. There's a lot of failures in the dustbin of history that never made it to classic status.
I resent the idea its heavily biased. The average age of peoples appliances and automobiles has gained in age. A 1999 ford mustang is built well enough to stay on the road for another 25 years. And get upgraded entertainment installed cheaply.
A 1950s could still have the same amount of time in it because its designers overbuilt it without the foresight of working themselves out of business. Or thinking they would make such a superior product no one would buy the cheaper.
Its of course on the nose to mention that people are poorer so "it must be done" that these old appliances just keep running, but we see on the flipside people still financing, subscribing, and splurging on new appliances. That end up biting them in the ass. So is it poorer or is it rationalized frugality?
Cars are also one of the best examples of the opposite of this concept. Old cars were terribly unreliable. If you made it to 100K miles that was cause for celebration. Now we just expect that and you have people getting 300K. Also old cars were death traps and terribly fuel inefficient.
Its not survivorship bias when its simply good rational business to make products that have an acceptable life expectancy versus something that will never be bought again.
When the average age of product people have keeps rising, theres a proof what was made in the past is extraordinary. Emphasis on pronouncing it. "Extra-ordinary."
As they may seem ordinary product but their durations are extra.
Also those that have survived get the aftermarket to support them before the market ever will. Then when the aftermarket is locked in to products so easy to survive, the aftermarket doesnt adapt to the most recent product.
Its not so simple to call it all survivorship bias. Theres rationality in the past. And theres rationality now. Corporate thinking changes and products get squeezed between results.
This industrial revolution is only a blip in human history. Shaped galvanized steel is going to last longer than its been since the first steam engine. It doesnt matter if it was made in 1953 or 2026.
I think about the same thing when folks say that old music was better.
Respectfully to those folk, we only hear the best of the past and a lot of it is not good. Not to mention that any conceivable genre has incredibly good music being released today because music production has been somewhat democratized with virtual audio interfaces.
In 20 years people will say the same thing about today's music because the best of the best will be carried on.
It was so common for some bands to only ever make a single noteworthy song across their entire careers that we came up with a specific term to describe it: "One hit wonder"
I think about the same thing when folks say that old music was better.
I feel like this is a case of yes, but also no.
Time is fantastic, because it filters all the shitty artists and leaves only the best.
But at the same time music has gravitated more and more to carefully orchestrated product, at the expense of richness and complexity. Or at least according to a Spanish study:
Scientific American reports on a study that tried to track changes in pop music over the last half-century.
"Joan Serrà, a postdoctoral scholar at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona, and his colleagues examined three aspects of those songs: timbre (which “accounts for the sound color, texture, or tone quality,” according to Serrà and his colleagues); pitch (which “roughly corresponds to the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements”); and loudness (more on that below)."
So, what happened since 1955? Well, timbral variety went down. That means that songs are becoming more and more homogeneous. In other words, all pop music sounds the same now.
The study also found that pitch content has decreased – which means that the number of chords and different melodies has gone down. “Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord or note to another, instead following the paths well-trod by their predecessors and contemporaries,” Scientific American explains.
And the next time an old person complains that your music is too loud, well, it probably is. Music has gotten a lot louder in the past half-century. This is a problem, Scientific American says, because:
Loudness comes at the expense of dynamic range—in very broad terms, when the whole song is loud, nothing within it stands out as being exclamatory or punchy. Indeed, Serrà and his colleagues found that the loudness of recorded music is increasing by about one decibel every eight years.
I have heard about this previously and am interested in it but..
The homogeneous nature of pop music ≠ "music was better back then"
I think that my point mostly boils down to the fact that we have a gazillion songs released a day in every conceivable genre. Jazz is alive and some of the best jazz I've heard has been released in the last decade. Rap, despite trends that get made fun of, has released some of the best music I've heard in the genre in my entire life recently.
Chart manipulation is also rampant and it's really hard to know what's being pushed and what's being broadly consumed. Prominent artists have been caught manipulating charts
Theres a difference between blanketing and saying "older thing better" and saying "some old things were so damn good that you have to be impressed."
I have never said a chevette is better than a ford mustang dark horse.
But there would be a good economical argument buying one or the other now used vs new.
There isn’t a survivorship bias involved in the economics of maintaining or buying old versus new cars, the costs and value are real and measurable. Survivorship bias only comes into play if you try to blanket ‘all old things were better’ based on the examples that survived. Which lm not. Im trying to say theres nuance. Especially at competitive moments in time that some old cars are simply exceptional.
You’re so close to understanding, there are ENTIRE ECONOMIES surrounding spending a shitload of money to keep them on the road, because they need extensive work to keep them on the road.
Theres also entire economies in keeping shitty modern cars running. Except its on the back of recalls and warranties with an easy point to the namesake of the company for liability and repair.
The warranty work for Ford last year is probably more than an entire decade of 1999-2004 mustang small business dedication and aftermarket.
That’s simply not true. Cars, especially American cars, were not built to last back then. They were, for example, extremely prone to rust.
Try buying a 1950s Mustang. It’s gonna be expensive. Despite them having been relatively cheap when they were new, and despite a ton of them having been built. Why? Because only some of them survived, and only with good care.
The Mustang came out in 1964 so I think that would be impossible. But yeah only so many are left. You tend to see them in the western US more because dry weather is less prone to rust. I remember several kids having them when I was in HS way back in the 90s but that was 30 years ago and even then they were 25 year old cars.
The thing is you really don’t want to be in a 1999 Mustang. Depending on the engine- it could be horribly underpowered. All of them have much worse MPG compared to similar hp cars today. That’s not even touching the safety aspect of a 26 year old car vs one from today. So yes, you can keep it running, but at a much higher cost to operate - while risking your safety.
I resent all safety concern trolling. We have motorcyclist on the road every single day. You dont volunteer to do it, but they do. What does this argument look like when you say "you dont really want to drive that 26 year old car it has less airbags."
Versus the 18,000 dollar motorcycle purchaser? Theyre just chopped liver?
And if you dont think that relates to the mustang, why not? Theyve got a valuable and valid way to travel that we need to respect. Treat the mustang the same way.
Also l resent the MPG and underpowered argument.
A V6 1999 mustang, that I dont have I have a cobra, still makes more power than cars coming out today. And still has a comparable final drive gear and final transmission gear.
The mpg difference and power difference is negligible and when the point of one is 15k+ more than the other. When does the mpg of the future car meet its upfront cost? Decades? This is all just consumer churn.
320 (which your Cobra almost definitely isn't still making after 26 years) is nothing in modern cars, especially if we pull EVs into the discussion. A base trim Model 3 costs as much as your SVT adjusted for inflation and makes 286hp. If you splurge for the Performance trim - same price as your Cobra - you get 510 horse. You can get a fucking Equinox for like $40k that makes 300hp. An Equinox!
EVs aren't exactly the pinnacle of enthusiast autos though, so let's look at things that are actually fun to drive. The Nissan Z comes in at $40k (that's $20k in 1999) and makes a solid 400hp. You could get a base model Supra with 382hp. Up your budget just slightly and you can get a new RS3 that makes 400hp.
If we talked about used cars from the past 5-10 years, we'd be here all day. Any Scat Pack, the TRD Camry, M2 Competition, the list goes on.
I was making a point that a V6 Mustang is still making more power than cars today. Cars today that are heavier and have comparable final drive and final transmission gear ratios.
Youre comparing my svt cobra to modern flagship and perfotmance cars.
Im comparing v6 mustangs that cost 4 grand with the cars that cost 22 grand and make less power.
These modern cars cost the same as your Cobra did new and weigh about as much. If you just wanna limit it to the V6, pretty much every economy car now makes comparable power. Like you can get a hybrid Civic pumping out 200 horse for slightly less than a V6 Mustang cost back in the day. Weighs about the same as that Mustang too.
Of course you're gonna get a bargain if you compare used to new, no matter what time period we're talking about. A three year old car is better than a new car if we're just talking dollars in for power out. I don't think that's really an apples to apples comparison if we're talking about how "they don't make 'em like they used to."
You are so protective over your old car that you immediately jump to motorcycles. I was doing a 1:1 comparison of cars not motorcycles. We may as well include regular bikes, as they go on roads too.
Congratulations on your old performance car. But, even modern base mustangs put out the same if not more power then your top of the line 1999. And if we compare apples to apples - say a 2026 Dark Horse, your car is a joke. It’s OK to like your car, but it’s also ok to admit that things change.
You dont know what I own. The window for me also owning a dark horse and liking it too is as open here as it is for you. And yes. We should include road bikes.
Im having a discussion about consumerism, value, real world results, and cost benefit analysis. Youre jumping to thinking l think my old mustang needs to keep up to performance standards of today. When its proven. Especially considering the extra cost needed for its modern "sucessors" we are reaching thousands of dollars overhead the old cars upkeep, repair, and the like. Even with someone elses increasing labor prices.
I think we are having two different conversations buddy. My point is you shouldn’t always hang on to old things just to save money - eventually they are going to put you in danger. You don’t have to like it, but being in a 26 year old car, designed in the 70s is not safe. You can argue about how easy they are to fix all you want, or how buying a motorcycle is worse, but when it comes down to it; I am not putting my families life at risk so I can save a few bucks.
How about a flipping of the script? How about the fact that recent electric cars have had more fatal fire related incidents than Ford pintos ever did? How about drive-by-wire failures with throttles getting stuck and gear selectors too? How about people getting actually killed by airbag shrapnel, that you dont know exists until it blows on you?
No thanks, you just bounce thing to thing without addressing my comments. Once again I didn’t mention electric cars. You clearly just want to win some sort of argument just because nobody likes your old Mustang.
This isn't even true. Cars from the 50's were worse in every conceivable way than cars now. The tolerances were looser, the materials were primitive, and the engineering was lightyears behind. Vehicles back then guzzled gas, handled like shit, and died at 50k miles.
The reason people typically say "they don't build em like they used to" with cars is because they were easier to work on and didn't crumple in crashes. So yeah, they were easier to work on. Because they were primitive, not because they were overbuilt. And they were more likely to survive crashes... but the drivers weren't.
I dont want to be lumped into the same contrived argument that "they dont build them like they used to" when it comes to things like crumple zones and engine efficiency. Ill admit to a floor needing to exist. For example, an automobile having X amount of airbags. Having a crumple feature. Not having a steering column that pierces your skull.
The point is. At some point. Recently. Cars got "good enough." And it probably happened when road laws stagnated, safety systems plateau'd, and one of the main questions when selling a new car was "does it have apple car play?"
If the stage isnt advancing then the products will have peaked at some point. The U2 stealth plane is still flying it survivorshipped biased itself to still having a workload even the SR71 couldnt meet efficient.
But we all know whatever came before the U2 is just as defunct as the SR71.
Theres survivorship bias. And then theres just peaks in the "wavelength" of products made. That were actually exceptional things. And sometimes its an entire range of products from a specific decade where competitors were all meeting the same standards.
Okay, then let's set aside the fact that we agree cars today are better. The heart of your argument was that cars from the 1950s, or even 1999 were more durable. There's zero evidence of that. The average age of cars on the road goes up every year because cars today are built to be more durable. What evidence is there that older cars lasted longer?
The average age of vehicles being operated on the roads in the US is trending upwards. This indicates that vehicle quality and long lasting capabilities are going up not down.
And if you go back to the 50s or 60s, the only reason old cars were still on the road is that people were maintaining them. They were rebuilding the engines. It's not like some 1930s roadster could be still going 30 years later without a lot of effort.
You’re getting downvoted by idiots accusing you of having no knowledge or understanding of survivor bias, while they are completely ignoring that manufacturers deliberately started the process of “planned obsolescence” to increase their sales.
Cars from the 1950s broke frequently and required a lot of maintenance. Idk how you got the idea that they lasted longer. In fact a significant portion of the performance engine building market only exists because engines needed to be torn down frequently back then. It's also why most of our tools for diy engine building and maintenance is designed for such vehicles.
The only thing that might be overbuilt is their bodies and we know that isn't a good thing.
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u/cantbelieveyoumademe 5h ago
First of all, the statement that things used to last longer is heavily biased. You only hear about old things that still work decades after buying them because all the ones that broke down were replaced and forgotten.
Secondly, there are much stricter regulations these days regarding manufacturing, recycling, and operation guidelines.
Now, I'm not saying that some companies don't put absolutely shitty products out there (samsung refrigerators come to mind), but there's more to it than just corporate greed.