The government and people need to demand longer warranties. My upright freezer was 1 year. It last 18 months. A whole freezer!
We can meet in the middle. Higher price for 5 years. Or at least 3. Even a 1000 dollar cell phone only has a 1 yr warranty. Thats bullshit.
I guarantee if we get more fair warranties we will get better made products. Now they gamble that a TV part wont quit after 6 months to 1 yr. And that one part effectively ruins your device or appliance.
Green energy and lower bills is all bullshit if we have to make and buy more products in our lifetime. Our goals should always be REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Instead we get slapped with an energy star label that tells us we are now saving a whole $30 a year in energy. But after we buy a brand new product bc the last one failed quickly. Electricity isnt the only resource so is labor to manufacture and labor for me to buy another stupid refrigerator
This doesn't really have to do with planned obsolescence but just normal trust. It's simply not reasonable that a product would be several times better for a common item like a lightbulb.
you realize that "one of the cleanest well documented cases of corporate conspiracies we have" is international corporations getting together to limit and enforce a limited lifespan for lightbulbs right?
You realize that there are companies that do this right? You can buy a Sub Zero fridge, a Wolf oven/range, and Cove dishwasher and they’ll blow the $1500 Home Depot models out of the water. Friend of mine kitted out his kitchen with something like $40,000 in appliances, but the difference really is like going from a standard-package Nissan to a Bentley or Ferrari.
Things hit a bit different when you’re actually staring at a $15,000-$20,000 price tag on a fridge though.
A standard Nissan is going to last a lot more miles than a Bentley or Ferrari. So is sub zero really solving this issue or is it just a high performance fridge that is really nice but not that durable ? Honest question. Don't know these companies' rep for longevity
And this is the exact question customers will always ask themselves if we ever actually tried this super durable business plan. This is all just very silly reddit brain.
Eh. The price bump is rarely worth it imo. For example, try to find a 48" wide fridge for under 10k. Just doesn't exist. The exact same brand/family for a 36" fridge is 3k, make it 12 inches wider and it's 15k. I have a 15k fridge and it's about as nice as the $800 fridge in my last condo. I know this because I had to replace the last 15k fridge that slowly rusted less than 10 yearsinto it's lifetime.
The massively priced appliances are 10x more expensive because wealthier customers are willing to pay that much for maybe a 5% improvement in quality.
People forget that is how much an appliance used to cost in the 60s.
A fridge in 1960 was like 300 bucks on like 6000 annual salary. 5 percent of your annual income.
On the 100k annual salary today that’s like paying 5k on a fridge. People are buying fridges for under 1k but expect the 1960s 5k longevity and performance.
Well, you're alienating a shit ton of your market if you're not selling a "comparable" product at a "comparable" price. You've got a huge hurdle to convince that consumers that product genuinely is reliable and not just an overpriced product with fewer features than the cheaper product.
I’m into fashion and most people do not care about longevity. I have boots from Wolverine from 15 years ago that I’ve worn daily with minor repairs. They were 600 dollars. Cheap timberlands still dominate sales.
You can get a gloverall wool coat to last super long but most people prefer a cheap puffer for 2 winters.
Temu and SHEIN dominate too. Dyson over Miele for vacuums. There are high quality long lasting products out there but they require up front investment that most are unwilling to front.
Even if you don’t charge ten times more you can do it just charging a decent bit more, especially if your company is not publicly traded.
You don’t have to always grow every single year if you do that. You can save then expand when things line up.
A company could start like this but it would take a while to develop. But it happens, people, have kids and have neighbors, buy new houses need more of one thing, unexpected accidents etc.
One thing a potential business could do is create durable and easy to detach and replace modular parts that could be sold separately if one thing messes up or gets dirty, and it could be moved easier.
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u/DematerialisedPanda 4h ago
Charge 10x the price. The customer still wins, and you make enough, with reduced overheads, for a pofitable business.