Well-studied? By whom? In what journals?
The Lindy Effect may be true, but based on that Wikipedia article's sources, you can't make a good scientific claim for that being the case. Even if you could, you still run into all the current problems such a nebulous branch of science must contend with, such as the peer review problem and the reproducibility problem.
It's not claiming to be a scientific law; it's a heuristic for making decisions. The rest of Taleb's books are also about making decisions, not "being right" (whatever that means).
A concrete example is if I'm writing a blog, and I want people to read my posts in 5 or 10 years. Do I go with the cloud platform that just launched or an older hosting provider? This is a decision people make every day. Of course there are many people who don't care if their blog is readable in 5 years; this isn't a judgement.
The Lindy effect is not about what's "better"; it's about what lasts longer. It's also not making statements about the present, which is what survivorship bias typically means.
Older people obviously will die sooner, but having survived does give you some information. For example, your life expectancy at age 1 is 75 years, but at age 40 it's closer to 79 years.
e.g. https://www.annuityadvantage.com/resources/life-expectancy-t...
The Lindy effect is a theory about the surviving examples specifically.
My personal take is that there’s a an apex for a particular generation of technology, and that is good forever. A 1930s Farmall tractor is an example of that... there are improved modern replacements, but the 1930 model still does the job near optimally. I would guess that a non trivial number of those tractors will be in use in 2130.
1980s/early 90s minicomputers are similar. Many of these devices are still in use today, and probably could be kept in use for decades to come.
Modern tech is a little harder because we’ve been in a rapid growth phase and the software services based world is more aligned with production than sustainment. I’d bet that trend will change in 20-30 years.
He says it cost me $100 to get the best that has ever been made, and it's backed up by a lot of experience living off grid
Many preventable deaths happen every year as a result.
He says "one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten is: Don't trade a gun for a snow machine". This is exactly what you're saying, and it's backed up by a lot of experience living without power and water!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH15Kua5P1Y&t=918s
He also says "everyone one of us has to decide when to jump ship on a technology"
He says canoes peaked in the 1960's, and you can buy a used one for like $125 that's the same as what you'd buy today for thousands. Same with hand saws. He maintains old saws and chainsaws and uses them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH15Kua5P1Y&t=746s
when you look at any kind of manufactured goods a lot of things have reached their peak and are either poorer quality than they used to be or they're just the same quality as their peak
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I found this channel via a video about building an off grid cabin from scratch for a couple thousand dollars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOOXmfkXpkM
It's good -- a lot of it is built by hand with a hammer and nails. He even says load bearing screws are too expensive, and nails are better!
All of the advice reminds me of Taleb, because it's not necessarily trying to be "right", but rather distilling rules of thumb from practice.
The old one my parents had was aluminum with a metal gear. The modern version has been MBAed to death — the gear is plastic, and the lid is so thin that you could probably replicate it with 2 plys of aluminum foil. It costs more and is measurably worse in any dimension.
Grummans are great and they're still being made (though not by the original company).
However, for recreational/tripping/whitewater, Royalex-based canoes were better for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately the material is no longer being made because its intended use (Go Carts) didn't take off to the degree planned. The company continued to make it on a more or less breakeven basis but upon a change of ownership the new owner decided to scrap it. There have been one or two efforts to make something equivalent, but AFAIK they haven't panned out.
There are still plenty of well-made fiberglass/Kevlar boats being made but they're much more fragile.
The Lindy effect is the realization that your encounter of something is like a random sample. "How old are chairs when I exist?" "How old are iPhones?"
Office chairs have a reclining mechanism. If you ever leaned back too far in an old office chair with four wheels, you would find out the hard way that four isn't enough. It's very easy to lean back comfortably and not realize you've reached the tipping point, fall back and hit your head on the floor or have a close call.
My first jobs long ago had four-wheeled office chairs, so you can guess how I found this out.
The fifth wheel goes a long way to preventing this danger.
You're much less likely to be leaning back in a regular four-legged chair so the front legs come off the ground, and if you do you'll probably be more aware that you are doing something outside the chair's normal mode of use.
And even if offices go out of style, office chairs will likely be around long past then.