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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

One of the last times something like this came up I went and looked up the cheapest desk fan in an old Sears catalog. Maybe the ‘60s or so.

It was priced at like $15, about the same as today.

But if you did the math for inflation, it would cost like $120.

So of course they lasted forever. And they were made of metal and designed to be workhorses. They cost $120!

When you make a plastic desk fan for $15, even with razor thin profits for everyone involved there just isn’t much money left to put into lasting quality parts.

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And the plastic desk fan probably lasts for years anyway.

A lot of us have way too much disposable odds and ends--I don't even want to tell you how much tech logo clothing I've ended up with over the years. But not everything needs to be pass down to your grandchildren quality.

And just think when you got the tech logo clothing you become a walking billboard. Are you getting paid to wear it?

But yeah most grandchildren auction off their parents belongings anyway. That’s why birds make nests and then they go somewhere else and maybe return, make a new nest.

People are fixated on permanence—perhaps that’s another way to build housing: design it so it is sustainable, then tear it down and recycle the materials every 10 years.

About a decade ago we got a Lasko box fan that was all-metal. About $100 versus maybe $25 for the plastic ones (back then—I'm sure both would be worse now, thanks inflation).

It's amazing, and unlike the plastic ones didn't die in 2-3 years. Way more powerful (the "low" setting is somewhere between "medium" and "high" on the plastic fans we've owned), cord's thicker and heavier, whole case and the screens are heavy metal so they're difficult to break and I could probably repair them somehow, if they did.

Unfortunately, last I checked nobody makes anything like it now. Guess we'll have to look for some kind of shop-fan if this one ever dies and can't be fixed, assuming those haven't been shittified by then.

Part of that $15 also paid a wage to the guy who built the fans, who worked in the fan plant in some town that closed up 40 years ago.

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