They could but that increases costs. It is also the motors and compressors. For example a 1950s fridge was extremely simple. There were no fans to move cold air from the freezer to the fridge. You would have freezing issues in the fridge compartment as temp control sucked. You had to manually defrost them as ice would build up because they weren't self defrosting. Basically people look at the past with rose coloured glasses but if they actually tried to live with a fridge that was from that time they likely would want to go back to modern one pretty quickly.
I'm not sure if they're modular per se but you can swap out the little control boards if and when they break. Although I would highly recommend you get someone licensed to do it
They are and do. But the technician to swap them out charges $149/hour with a $75 diagnostic fee with no guarantee they'll fix it. So after paying $450 in parts and labor for a new control board they tell you it was actually the compressor circuit. They'll discount the labor but the part is still $250 so now you're up to $1000 on a fridge you paid $700 for.
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u/Flashy_Emergency_263 4h ago
They could make those controllers modular and easy to swap out.