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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

There's some survivorship bias at play here. The crappy, poor quality goods made in the USSR went to the scrap heap decades ago. The stuff you're seeing today lasted the test of time, but a lot of other stuff didn't.

Some Soviet categories of goods, and brands were pretty decent. My grandparents' fridge has lasted a good 40 years, without any issues. Their television was broken more then it was working.

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A percentage of this effect is due to "restrictions" on manufacturing. i.e. you had to make things with a certain thickness of steel, etc. You see this effect with American goods too. You have avocado green fridges still running for 50 years or washing machines from the 1970's that are still running. Things don't last today because we have paper thin metal and various other cheap parts and there is no incentive to make a washing machine that lasts for 40 years.

I received an old washing machine when i got married and a new dryer. That washing machine is super heavy, but still working. The dryer is a POS and the plastic knobs have all started failing, so I have to use pliers to turn the knob.

I'd pay 2x the price of a standard appliance to get a quality one without question.

Buy used professional model instead. They will last much longer, while cost similar price. But usually, they are very dumb and feature-poor.

Also, if you see market for heavy duty products, you can pitch investors and start manufacturing them by yourself.

I've thought of both of these things before, but don't have the appetite for such a venture at the moment.

Isn't part of the "50 year old fridges running" due to survival bias? Meaning : you aren't (and probably can't for obvious reasons) counting the vast numbers/majority of the same model of item that are no longer in service.

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