Legacy software support and falls under the same boat. Going back into old code to add functionality for a legacy product is basically uneconomical to do, unless it's something you specifically promises a customer.

It's especially true because after an initial software release and support period, the team might be broken up and everyone goes to different projects. Bringing them back to add functionality or fixing non-critical bugs costs money and could easily delay new releases.

People look at these decisions as sinister, and they aren't. This is simply a case of consumers getting what they pay for: you want decades long parts availability/support? Well you're going to pay for that. You want updates software for years/decades? That's also going to cost you.

Then literally everything everywhere is planned obsolescence. There is no business that promises parts availability forever, and there never has been. And if your definition is that broad, then it is effectively meaningless.

Making parts for years after a product has ended costs money. Keeping a working supply chain costs money. Keeping those parts on shelves somewhere, ready for replacement, costs money. Keeping inventory and track of all of this costs money. And you normally have to overproduce them because trying to go back 10 years later to put an old part back into production is enormously expensive.

Most consumers are simply not willing to pay for that. This is one of those things that consumers say they care about, but when it comes to pony up money for it, they suddenly don't care about it. What consumers say and what their behavior actually is are two different things.

That's why you have to go to companies where you're paying for that part support and quality up-front: Miele guarantees parts availability for 10 years after discontinuing of a model appliance (though 15 years is standard). Commercial manufacturers can guarantee even longer availability most of the time (mostly because their designs change to little over time).

But you simply won't find that for cheap shit appliances. The whole point of cheap shit appliances is to have razor thin margins, and keeping an active supply chain open goes against that.

>No, they were screamed at to cheapen the design or fear going out of business. It had nothing to do with costs.

I'm calling bullshit on that. It all comes back to cost at the end of the day. Longevity isn't free. It costs money. Adding costs can easily kill a program. I've seen a few cents increase in costs completely cancel years-long programs.

Cheapen the design literally means reducing the cost.

I don't know of any engineer ever that was told to reduce a product's lifetime without any gain out of it (lower cost, easier production, better parts availability, etc): unless you own 100% of the marketspace, people can easily just buy your competitor's product and you don't gain from it.

I'm sure there's a handful very niche companies (where there is indeed market capture) where something like this happens, but it's so rare I can't think of any example.

Most of the time I just see people getting what they pay for. I have no trouble finding quality stuff, it just costs more than what most people think is reasonable.

My wife's family think I'm insane for how much I spend on appliances. Years later I've yet to buy another dishwasher/blender/washer/dryer/etc while they are on their 2nd or 3rd set.

>The other Whirlpool commercial washer has a POS transmission with shitty plastic gearing that's widely undersized, along with shitty shaft seals that die within a couple of years

Are you sure? I pretty much have the same model in one of the buildings I manage and has been working fine under heavy use for 15 years. It's the same kind that laundromats buy. Owners of laundromats aren't stupid: they pay attention to lifetime cost. They aren't going to buy something that falls apart every few years.

>There is NO reliably designed refrigerator at the moment but hopefully someone will step up to the plate.

Commercial fridges are all garbage? Again, the people buying commercial are looking at the lifetime cost. Miele is also well-known for going fine for 20+ years (both for dishwashers and fridges).

I think you're just painting a pretty broad brush.

I wouldn't trust any car salesman's opinion on the engineering of the cars they sell. Like, at all.

>when making a good long lasting design saying the company will be out of business if the design isn't cheapened. This is not an exaggeration, it's very real.

Correction: they are screamed at for not making their cost targets. I've never heard of any company that has complained about making something longer-lasting at no cost.

Missing cost targets can easily make a product unprofitable and ruin the whole program.

It is not planned obsolescence. That isn't a thing. I've never heard of any engineer being told to explicitly make something break earlier by design.

The issue isn't mechanical vs. electronic.

Electronics can easily last decades. Just go look at electronic controllers in any older factory: it's not hard to find stuff from the 70s/80s working just fine.

Electronic is inherently much more longer-lasting than any mechanical system. Hence why you don't see mechanical controllers for things in places like factories anymore: if they were more reliable then that's all they would use. It's not at all hard to seal off electronics from water or harsh environments.

Electronics just lend themselves to cut cutting much more easily than mechanical does. With a mechanical timer/controller you can't really do much outside of move to cheaper materials or lower tolerances. With electronics you can move to much cheaper components that aren't as rugged or can't handle temperature swings as well as the durable stuff does.

Moving to very cheap electronic components can easily reduce cost by 10x or more. Moving to cheaper mechanical components might save you like 10-20%. So that's why cheap appliances tend to have electronic parts that don't last long. Premium/commercial grade appliances with electronics should have no trouble lasting decades though.

You're looking at this the wrong way. They aren't being designed purposefully to fail. I don't know of any engineer that has ever been told to make something fail prematurely. This is especially true because consumers don't typically buy the same brand appliance to replace the one that just died a few months after you got it.

I've been on the engineering side, and this is how it actually works:

A manufacturer or a big box store or whoever will have a lot of data showing that if an appliance is priced at $X, then they can expect to sell Y number of them. So from that you can plan out your margins and costs. Well, the most sales happen (surprise) when the appliance is at the cheap end. But that also means your margins are very thin, so you need to cut costs everywhere.

So the engineer will cut back on materials or durability as long as it still keeps it working within the warranty period. So a plastic tub instead of metal. Or thinner metal. Sometimes a new technology, manufacturing method, or outsourcing, will save money without reducing build quality, but most of the time it does.

The solution to this is pretty simple: if you want better quality then you will just need to pay more for it. You simply can't have an appliance that lasts decades without spending way more than you probably think is reasonable. Just take some of your examples from 50 years ago and plug their prices into an inflation calculator. If you want a long-lasting replacement, then that number is about what you should spend for about the same number of features.

Long-term parts support costs money. Keeping those parts in the supply chain and on a shelf somewhere for years costs money. Long term customer support for a product costs money. Making that part better built to last longer costs money. It all adds up. That's why when a smaller-scale manufacturer tries to scale larger (ie. go to the bigger market with smaller margins), long term parts support is usually one of the first things to go.

You can still absolutely buy very durable and long-lasting appliances. They just cost a lot more. And the higher cost you go, the more your market shrinks.

>but most would be happy to spend more for a fridge with a longer life and less, if not zero, repair calls. Nothing like that exists today.

They do exist, and no people are not lining up to buy them.

The drive to cheaper appliances is 100% consumer driven. Consumers want their appliances cheaper and they want more gimmicky features. Well, making something cheaper and adding stuff to it means that the cost has to come from somewhere, and it almost always ends up being build quality or longevity.

Here's a fridge that offers a 5 year warranty and should easily last 20 years. Here's one that should last the rest of your life with proper maintenance. I don't see people lining up to buy either of them, partially because they are expensive, but also because people will look at that and see no icemaker/water dispenser, no fancy door LCD, no wifi or advanced interface, etc and then see the (shit) Samsung with blue LEDs and LCDs everywhere with wizzbang gimmicks for cheaper and go with that instead.

Here's an even starker example that you can find a big box store like home depot:

1. Washing machine A
2. Washing machine B

Both of these cost about the same. One has every gimmick you can imagine that you will use maybe twice and then never again. The other has two knobs and a button. Take a guess which will last 15+ years, and which one will fall apart within a few months to a year.

You can repeat this for just about any appliance you want:

A good toaster that will last decades will cost about $250. Same for a wafflemaker. Most people are not buying them.

A dishwasher should cost about $1k for the barebones model. Mine cost about $2k and I've yet to meet anyone who spent the same.

You get the idea. These are all easily findable and you can go out and buy them, but they aren't at all popular.

This is exactly it.

Everyone raving about how "they don't make them like they used to" completely ignores how much that fridge grandma has that lasted 40+ years cost.

Most regular modern appliances are cheap. Well that low cost had to come from somewhere.

I'm an engineer that has designed consumer electronics. Planned obsolescence isn't a thing.

How much did your old dishwasher cost? What is that in today's money?

You can still find new parts for 10+ year old appliance, but they are typically premium or commercial versions.

You're not really going to save anything by doing this. The amount of energy is going to be close to the same if you do it in one big batch rather than a bunch of smaller ones.

Eliminating tea entirely would be the better bet.

Historically the biggest cuplrit of energy is a fridge and electric water heater. Everything else is noise.

Most reviews are junk. People don't usually report the status of their appliance 10 years later. Some stuff breaks during shipment or breaks within the warranty period and that's normal. What's important is that the initial breakages are fixed and then it lasts after that.

Maybe this particular commercial model has gone down in value? It's possible, but their customers keep records and metrics on this kind of stuff, and would quickly notice and it would sink the whole line. Businesses don't usually like to buy junk appliances for situations like this.

FWIW, there *may* be some effects from shortages going on right now. Some factories have relaxed quality assurance just to get stuff out because the shortages are getting so bad. So admittedly right now might not be the time to buy unless you are in dire need of something.

>I've had people in the industry tell me Liebherr and Miele and Bosch fridges are still 6-10 years.

The marketshare for these appliances is so small that anecdotal information about them can skew pretty hard. I've also noticed a mindset of "ahhh they're all the same no matter the price", which isn't really true, but I can understand why they think that. It's similar to how people think planned obsolescence is standard company practice: it's absolutely not, but given they don't have all the context or understand the decision-making involved, it's not surprising they think that it is.

>10,000 in today's dollars isnt going to garantee 24 years of operation from any appliance.

I never said it did. What I'm saying is that quality costs money. You will not be able to make a durable appliance at bargain basement prices and that has always been true. You have to expect to spend more money than most people think is reasonable for fewer features.

>Short of manufacturing your own appliance soup to nuts, NO budget can satisfy an appetite for longevity, because there arent any more

Again, you are just not looking int he right spots. I just posted you a washing machine that will easily last 20+ years. I know because I have the same commercial washing machine from 2003 that is still going fine despite multiple loads per day for almost two decades. Laundromats aren't in the business of buying junk and constantly replacing it.

You can find a BIFL version for any appliance you are looking for.

I've been on the design side of this stuff. I know how it works. This is 100% consumer-driven. Consumers don't want longevity for the most part, and the ones that do go to the premium brands or versions for it.

This isn't actually a thing.

Source: I'm an engineer who has worked on consumer devices. I also know dozens of engineers in other similar industries who would say the same thing.

So I'm an engineer, and I've worked on consumer devices, and I'm going to tell you the secret here:

Take any of those "long-lasting" appliances from the 50s. What did it cost? How much is that in today's money? Here's one reference to look at. Plug them into a cpi calculator and see for yourself.

That $21 toaster from 1951 is the equivalent of $230 today. How about that $329 fridge? That's over $3k today.

Does the modern equivalent you are using for comparison cost the same with the same features? No? Well then it's no different than comparing chinese-made junk from the dollar store to premium stuff at a high-end store. Of course the cheap junk is going to look worse.

This is the basic problem: most people want their stuff cheap. They want lots of features. Well, when you cut price and add features, corners have to be cut somewhere, and it's going to come out of materials and build quality.

You can absolutely find good quality stuff that will last decades. You have to completely recalibrate what you think is reasonable to pay for an appliance though: Miele dishwashers have been known to easily go 20+ years. Their most basic, no-frills model *starts* at $1.3k. Some of their higher-end models go over $4k. Want a toaster that lasts decades? Well you're looking at $200+, but you can absolutely still find them once you know what you're looking for.

Here, I'll even use a clear example. Let's take a look at washing machines. Here's some Samsung piece of shit that will fall apart within a few years but has every whiz-bang feature you can imagine that you will use exactly once and never touch again. Here's a commercial washing machine that has nothing more than two simple dials and a button that costs more, but will last you until you die. But consumers almost exclusively want the shiny box with all the features, because people tend to shop by looking for the most features per $, not for longevity. So that's why most stuff you buy at the store is junk.

As soon as you start expanding your budget for an appliance but not looking for gimmicky features, suddenly you can find lots of stuff that lasts a long time.