My TV has a terrible display but doesn't know how to connect to the internet, for example.
Less is more, more is less. Less is better, more is worse.
In the scheme of a remodel or new-construction adding the high-quality, durable options is a small expense and saves on very expensive repairs down the road where you have to pay $2,000 to replace an item that would only have cost a few dollars more to install one that will almost never need replacing.
Alas, we never did anything with the idea.
You also hit on something that I think too many people don't think of when they're pricing stuff. People tend to look at the sticker price alone, not the total cost of ownership. I've found that often (but certainly not always), the more initially expensive but high-quality stuff will end up being cheaper in the long run.
Do your research. I witnessed an office where the CEO's partner was an interior decorator, and said partner was responsible for the office construction.
In the opulent kitchen, they put two commercial dishwashers, the kind where you preload the dishes onto a kind of rack, and slide the whole rack into the dishwasher in one step.
Greatly increases utilization of such dishwashers, because the dirty dishes can be queued up for washing, and the clean ones can be unloaded and put away while the dishwasher is running.
These dishwashers were designed around maximizing utilization during busy periods. But.
In an office kitchen, they would be run once or twice a day most of the time, with bursts only happening during infrequent events. This turned out to be an unexpected problem.
It seems the dishwashers were full of steel for durability, and they needed to run a load to warm up. Once warm, they could to load after load at high speed. But when only doing one load a day, they wouldn't clean the dishes properly.
The vendor told them this and suggested they have one "prosumer" model and one commercial model for when they had a catered event, but this displeased the CEO's partner, so the company was stuck with two commercial units.
They learned to run an empty load every day before running a full load, wasting enough time that the dishwasher lost its speed advantage. It also wasted water and energy do do one preload for each daily load.
Something to think about when buying commercial. It's usually ok, but sometimes, a commercial unit has tradeoffs that will gravely undermine its ability to function in a home or office.
You make a very good point, but I don't think that whether its commercial or not is what you need to look at. The intended use case is. There are several commercial use dishwashers, for instance, that are intended for relatively infrequent use. The ones you describe were intended for heavy-duty restaurant use -- that's the real mismatch, not the fact that they were built for commercial use.
The infrequent commercial resturant / office kitchen models you mention are good, but lab/ medical models are what I imagine most people want.
You can get them based on power and water availability (real 240v+ hot water heating element!!!), high pressure pumps, all stainless parts, sanitary cleaning in under 10 mins, and can use active heating for drying. Fully programmable wash cycles, both time and temperature, but in an under counter residential-like form factor. Get one of these, plus some fryer clean out detergent, and you're set.
Also, they're easily 3-10x the price of higher end residential models.
I know many people who have had to replace or service their "high efficiency" machines within 5-10 years, while many old washers seem to last at least 20 years without service. Given the electronics and specialty parts in the new machines, it seems doubtful that you could keep one of them in service for more than 15 years.
I never spent so much time looking for an appliance. I must have spent 6 hours looking at Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc, websites. There are so many models, sizes and types. The model that died was ~25 years old. It performed well, but the company doesn't make microwaves anymore (Sanyo)... at least I didn't see that brand when searching.
Businesses should be happy with stable revenue once they reach that point, instead they desperately try to get more, risking the company’s reputation and/or legal issues (not specifically in this case but I’m sure there are companies that did illegal stuff just to get more profit).
The current idea of running a business is absolutely unsustainable.
On this water filter thing, the fridge costs about $1500. Suppose it lasts 10 years, and you replace the $55 water filter every six months. That's $1100 worth of water filters! The water filters almost double the cost of the fridge!
Profit-wise, on a $1500 fridge, it's a competitive market. You're looking at multiple brands, so GE probably has a profit of $100 at most on the fridge. On the water filters though, we know that the generic one sells for $19 and the branded one is $55. That suggests that GE probably makes a profit of at least $20 on the filter. Over the life of the fridge, that's $400 in profit -- 80% of the profit of the fridge is in the filters! If third parties are threatening that profit by making knockoffs, of course GE is going to take countermeasures to protect 80% of their profit.
Even in the water filter scenario, let's assume everyone has this fridge and is regularly buying filters. They had temporary growth in revenue but now that everyone has fridges + filters it's mostly stable again.
Do you think they'll stop there? The unsustainable idea we have of running a business would suggest they should be doing something else to even further increase the profits.
The name-brand GE filters (for the type I used to buy) eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, plus "5 trace pharmaceuticals" and 15 other contaminants.
The bargain bin filters (HDX, in this scenario) only eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, "tastes and odors."
GE - https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Genuine-MWF-Water-Filter-for-...
HDX - https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-Water-Filter-for-GE-Refriger...
If you can demonstrate that the store brand filters are the same, despite not advertising the ability to filter the same chemicals and pharmaceuticals then sure, you win.
My point was that the “name-brand costs more for no reason” is not always true. FFS
I have no interest in buying and disassembling the filters to compare them but since they are both charcoal filters they are the same. If they were not, then one of them would be advertised as a charcoal filter and the other one would be advertised as a charcoal filter + some other filter.
Shenzhen and other places is full of talent capable of fulfilling this niche.
All it takes is a brave soul to go out and try it.
Nest is now owned by Google. Nest also had installed microphones in their units without telling consumers prior to being purchased by Google.
I'm convinced privacy-conscious smart products which keep things as local as possible combined with good simple design is applicable to so many niches. Including routers.
If I was a VC I'd be looking for someone to invest in which offers both modern digitized equipment without the total privacy/security sacrifice.
To put it another way, should my car stop running entirely if it detects that I'm using a "non-GM-certified" cabin air filter?
Imagine you were stranded somewhere and the only option was to use the wrong oil. Sure, it may destroy the vehicle, but at least you would be able to run the vehicle and (hopefully) get to safety before your engine block melts. My issue is when the decision has been made that "you _might_ break it, so we've taken the choice away."
Another example might be, should users not be allowed to install programs on their computer because those programs might interfere with the computer's performance?
In your example, I still would absolutely have minded such enforced nonsense.
And you should never have a warranty voided for doing an unauthorized but valid adjustment/repair.
From the perspective of the manufacturer, it's either a fairly blatant cash grab or poor design.
https://external-preview.redd.it/qRggs-k588dZAM2uBK3FH4xOih9...