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Comment by moandcompany | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last, so the products are engineered to either be part of a subscription, to be replaced far sooner than necessary, or both. They're worried more about their revenue sustainability than they are actual product "sustainability."

The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going to sell another one unless it's to another (new) customer or purchased as a gift for someone by their existing loyal customer. So then they start entering into new product areas and eventually end up compromising quality.

As other have mentioned, this is becoming particularly annoying with home appliances and cars. "They don't make them like they used to" are true words.

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> It's hard to maintain a revenue stream

Appliance manufacturers survived most of the 20th century making reliable products for a smaller global population. On the other hand, it's hard to have never ending quarterly profit growth without planned obsolescence to create extra demand that normally wouldn't exist.

Indeed, the root of the problem is financialization.

Where are the 8% annual returns for old people’s pensions going to come from? Because the fertility rates of the last few decades surely is not going to result in growth like it did for previous generations.

Pension funds - the new all-purpose excuse for the blight that is financialization.

A worthy successor to "Think of the children!"

Sure, replace with

“How to provide promised services and goods to a larger and larger non working population from a smaller and smaller working population” and/or the politics of managing this once the working population realizes they are not going to get the same, so why should they bother with providing it?

Pension funding in the US is something of a joke anyways. Is this the icing on the cake?

I don't know what you mean. Money is just a means of allocating goods and services, but by itself, it does not increase the supply of goods and services. So the pensions, the 401ks, the savings, and the cash really all are just trying to grab a portion of the nation and world's goods and services.

Which is why the returns ("financialization") are so important, higher returns means you get a higher portion of the goods and services. But since returns are just money, it does not mean the sum total of goods and services increases, just the proportion that you get is proportional to the return you get relative to others. And you can replace "you" in this statement with "x tribe" whether it be generational, political, racial, etc.

"Financialization" means vampire capitalism.

Case in point: Greyhound. Asset stripping (real estate). Slow death of service.

Find a lever for extracting cash. Lean on it. Pry out cash til there's only a husk. Rinse. Repeat.

"Private equity" - bah humbug.

> hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last

Servicing. High-end appliances seem to last just fine.

I had a certified GE service technician come to my home and install a electric glass top range that came with the home because it had broken from my cast iron sitting on it while the glass cooled.

I turned off the range with my Cast Iron on it, the cast iron cooled slower than the glass and the glass cracked. Poor design not built for cast iron.

This happened twice.

That meant I got to spend good time chatting with the service tech. He said he’s the last of a dying profession for a few reasons:

1. Nothing is fixed anymore except really old stuff. The things are simply replaced because the cost of fixing is higher than just replacing it with new. This means we’re literally throwing what are effectively new products into the landfill months after being installed. Even the old stuff, they are pushed into suggesting new build because the supply chain for old parts is small and there’s no money in it anymore.

2. There’s no career path for technicians because of 1 so where he used to be training apprentices they are going for other trades.

> cost of fixing is higher

Paying a human to do anything is so expensive. And it makes sense when you break it down by what their costs probably are.

I don't think anyone is even making a lot of money there is so much overhead costs.

But you have to use a human no matter what.

In this case the thing that changed was we went from fixing with a few parts, to wholesale replacing.

Do any appliance brands still do in company servicing? At least near me Wolf/Subzero and competitors outsource service.

Nope, talk to appliance people and they will tell you all of the traditional high end brands are junk now too

I specifically did not call them "repair" people BTW since most have lapsed into doing mostly installs...it's not even worth it to repair today's s junk and most people just replace. Cost of parts and labor now can easily exceed replacement cost (by design obviously)

Maybe Speed Queen is the one exception. I've had folks explicitly single out Bosch as a brand people still mistakingly believe is high quality. Follow the supply chain...it all comes out of just a few factories with most parts shared.

There are no longer high quality brands, only high price. High price is usually just for the name or appearance.

The thing with repair people is that they'll always complain that whatever model they see most often is crap, without comprehending that the reason they see that model most often is because it's sold 10-100x any other model.

I don't agree, its like saying Victorinox/Wenger ran out of business because everybody eventually got that small pocket knife of theirs and due to its quality nobody is replacing those.

Yet reality is more like - completely new markets are opening, new rich people look for quality good brands, or father happy with his knife for 20 years will buy another one for his son. Or Miele, brand completely built on just its perceived reliability. They cost 2-3x more compared to even Bosch/Siemens, without any unique features apart from this.

The problem is, as almost everywhere in corporations - C-suite bonus incentives. Quick milking without care about long term strategies or brand name is the name of the game.

Victorinox/Wenger are good examples of a brand associated with a quality product (the original swiss army knife) that now extends that brand over to backpacks, luggage, etc.

Personally, I really like the Filson brand from the United States, but they also suffered from their core products being too-good, ownership changes eventually to a private equity fund, and ended up being driven into a lifestyle brand with a variety of otherwise unrelated product lines and collaborations (e.g. t-shirts) which often get manufactured overseas with lesser quality of materials and construction.

Another example might include other American "heritage" brands of footwear, such as Red Wings and Wolverine; they still make and sell their heritage products at a premium price but have been driven to use their brand to sell other, lesser quality goods with better profit margins.

I suspect it is more an issue with the "do one thing and do it well" trope than anything else. A great team that can design and produce high quality that is valued as high price surely can diversify along the way, if the management sees it and invests.

People move into new homes.

Most people don’t, or don’t know how to make their appliances last much longer.

For example the minimum of maintenance for water tanks, or changing air filters more often when your home has AC.

> People move into new homes.

Don't people bring their appliances with them when moving?

The cost of moving some things outweigh their value. Particularly longer distances or on smaller vehicles.

Generally not in the US.

When you make an offer to buy a home, there will be a section that lists the furnishings/appliances/things-not-nailed-down that are included in your offer. Your real estate agent is going to check the boxes for appliances without even asking you. You could tell the agent not to do that, and the seller could say no. But that would be unusual.

I can tell you as a real estate agent I almost always recommend to my clients that they leave the appliances... appliances are a pain to move! No guarantee that your old appliances will fit in the respective places in the house you are buying, likelihood of beating up the walls and floors as you move them in and out of houses, and often it will cost you as much to move it as it would to just buy a new one. Further - the buyer of your home generally doesn't want to have to go spend thousands on new appliances right after they dropped a big chunk of coin buying your house. It definitely makes an impression on buyers, especially how petty it looks if you are marketing a luxury home where the sellers have stripped all the appliances - does not give the impression of luxury to a prospective buyer.

none of this is anywhere near true.

A new refrigerator is roughly $1k for a cheap one, don't tell me someone is going to charge more than that to move a single item. Hell, I've paid for an entire move for less than that.

Dude - consider mainstream buying options like say, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. There are apartment sized refrigerators going for nearly $1000. Can you find a super low end model for under $1K? Sure - but that's not what the majority of people are putting into their homes for a family unit of 2+ people. Can I throw a washer and dryer into the back of my truck? Sure - but that's not what people are going to do if they are moving outside their immediate vicinity. At minimum they are backing up the U-Haul, at the high end they are bringing in movers.

sounds like you agree with me, the idea that it's cheaper to buy a new refrigerator vs moving it is ridiculous.

People will rationalize all sorts of poor decisions.

Why would they be paying to move it at all though when the house they are buying already has perfectly good, and often better, appliances than they would be moving anyway.

wut?

I live in the US and I don't know of anyone who chose not to bring their appliances with them.

What part of the US?!? I don’t know of anyone that didn’t leave them behind! That is really amazing

I think some people take others leave them.

It’s not uncommon to leave them depending on where you’re going. A new home might already have new appliances included.

It varies by market a lot. In my part of Canada -- for example -- appliances are almost always included with a house or apartment purchase. Similarly, I only recently learned that in large parts of Canada, it's the norm to rent or lease your water-heater either from a third party or from a utility. Out here in BC, that's not really a thing AFAIK.

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