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An essentially never discussed option is also that the fridge could be open source. Now when it breaks there is both motive and opportunity for third party repair companies to offer upgrades and fixes.

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Most fridges are repairable modulo buying one with a complex motherboard. Even then they're still fixable just spendy to do so. Also most aren't complex enough that you couldn't just reverse engineer the Mobo easily. People do this for cars and computers.

They could be much cheaper to repair if they used standard parts so repair places didn't have to order in custom pieces that they only use about 1 per year because every fridge has it's own version.

They might be more expensive to build, esp since customers may be more interested in having a tablet in their fridge than a repairable fridge.

Needing to make a fridge open sources screams at me that we really need to be simplifying the operation of a fridge.

I think component complication for planned obsolescence is much more of a thing than programming something in X years to kill itself.

Err it depends on your outlook. I’m such a hacker at heart I literally want everything I own to be open source.

Devices that are more efficient tend to be more complex, so that's another tradeoff to consider.

I.E. Internal Combustion Engine vs Electric Motor

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