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TheJackal927 t1_izo43r3 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in What makes one product cheap junk that breaks in a week and another that lasts a lifetime? by SirCheeseAlot

I don't think the answer has to be either planned obsolescence or consumer ease, but both. Companies make two categories of products (for the sake of argument) cheap and fragile, and good quality and durable. The worse product is cheaper, the latter more expensive. The consumer, seeing so much false variety in their products, gets overwhelmed and just tries to save money, which leads then to just buying the cheaper one. This "Coincidentally" makes the company more money because the consumer buys more fridges over their life for less money.

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BoilerButtSlut t1_izpb567 wrote

I'll give a simpler explanation: most consumers just don't care about durability as much as they say they do.

Here's a fun experiment you can do: ask a friend of yours how much they would be willing to pay for X appliance that lasts 20 years. I guarantee that number will be well below what that kind of appliance actually costs.

My wife's family thinks I'm insane for much I spent on my appliances even though I tell them it will last until I'm retired. And they are not poor.

Durability/longevity are one of those things that people talk about but never put their money where their mouth is.

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Potato-Engineer t1_izppxrb wrote

And let's go one step further: most consumers don't know whether the thing they're buying is durable. Sticking "durable" on the package is dirt-cheap. Actually making durable things is expensive. I'd guess that almost every consumer has, at some point, bought a thing they thought was durable, but it wasn't. Learning whether a product is durable generally takes some decent research about brands and products, and whether a particular brand just got bought by someone who just changed their quality to be much worse. We all have stories about how "X used to be good, but then they started making crap products."

So part of the question is "how durable does the consumer think this product is?" And if the consumer can't know, then you fall back on price again.

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BoilerButtSlut t1_izpuz6d wrote

My general rule is determine what features you want first. Like what features do you want as a minimum that would make you happy for whatever you buy. Then find the cheapest appliance with those features.

Then take that price and multiply it by 2-3x. That's the actual range you can expect for a durable model with those features.

It's not a perfect rule but it gets you in the general neighborhood.

But in general you will not find durability at low cost. That is a fiction.

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dildonicphilharmonic t1_izpqkhb wrote

OK boilerbuttslut, let’s hear about those appliances.

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