There's also a survival bias in that we don't consider the appliances from yesteryear that packed up back when disco was king.
1. Stove died in about 2007 2. Washer/dryer were replaced with something "better", although they were still running in 2009 3. Dishwasher died in 2011 4. Refrigerator was replaced but still running in 2013
This was not just survivorship bias. Basically all of these appliances lasted at least 30 years. They were from good brands (Washer/dryer and dishwasher were Maytag), but I don't think you can buy an appliance today that you can truly expect to last 30 years. At the least, there will be some sort of control board that will give out after 10-15 years and won't be available anymore.
Another data point: Just replaced a washer from the early 90s (German low-price brand, "Privileg") with one from the 2010s by a higher-priced brand (Bosch). Both were used. Reason for replacement: small top-loader for larger standard washer.
Both were obviously bought used.
The newer one broke within six months. The old, 30-year old one still works. The defect was a mechanical one, not the PCB. But notably, the still-functioning washer has no digital controls.
I know, anecdata is no data. But for this kind of appliance, I'd bet my arm that their lifetime has decreased substantially.
We started renting that house out in 2010 and bought a different house that had appliances that were about 7 years old (based on what the previous owner had told us). We had to replace the dishwasher in 2012 (so it was 9 years old then) and since then we had to replace it again in 2022 (at 10 years). Had to replace the fridge in 2014 (11 years).
> We test our commercial quality machines to 10,400 cycles or roughly 25 years of life in an average household.
> You probably want to hear that we test our electronic controls to one million depressions…yes, we actually do.
This has to be a race to the bottom and yeah, technically somehow it did sort of wash our clothes, but it was a huge hassle.
This was a fun read and I agree in sentiment to the rage of all the crap from target that falls apart in 10 minutes but I feel like I've developed an ok sense if when I'm taking this risk and am less frustrated when something cheap fails. Essentially any time I buy anything but a book from Amazon or anything but cereal and vodka from Target. Ultimately I think the crapification of lowend consumer goods has just made me buy less crap, which feels good I think. I've also accepted a pretend scifi narrative in which the only kind of society that doesn't descend into anarchy is one where people are constantly buying and throwing away cheap crap.
And as an aside I have one of those crazy juicers but I stopped using it because it scares my wife and smells like burning / ozone.
I used a Kindle 2 e-reader daily for ~14 years and, aside from decreased battery life, it was still great. Sadly I eventually stepped on it one too many times and the screen cracked.
I might fix it for ~$20 with ebay parts if I ever get bored enough.
We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, and ignore the overconstruction required of the survivors because mechanical theory was still developing at the time.
Also we used to have more single-application devices; while a juicer is often still a single-application device today, at the other extreme our phone has absorbed a deskfull of other single-application devices (and more). Usually with some improved reliability, some less, and also some loss of affordance.
Engineers tend to put care into building bridges that don't collapse, and have been doing so for millenia so collapses can happen, but are rare. "All the bridges that long ago collapsed" is in my opinion not all that many bridges, really [1], and lots of people remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I still remember the bridge collapse from the Northridge quake too.
Bridges are a special case of civic architecture where long durability and long reliability are taken into account that are kind of a special class, so they're probably not a great thing to generalize from.
[1] You can judge for yourself from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures
We see this in the evolution of many technologies, from boiler explosions (especially in trains) that are pretty much unknown today to jet air travel (likewise at a rather extraordinary state of safety) and many others besides (consider the implementation and impact of vaccination).
Gumby's point that the Victorian era bridges we still have were over-engineered is I think a good point. However we might like to say that they were well-engineered, but I bet that even they have been in a state of on-and-off if not constant repair.
And, boy, does it make good coffee.