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O Holy Crap

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Re: O Holy Crap

#301

Post by fuzzfactor »

ddejohn wrote: post #271
hoosieree wrote: post #3

Part of the reason we equate "old" with "good" like that 70 year old juicer is survivor bias. We don't dig through the landfill to find out how many broken 70 year old juicers are buried there. That said, I suspect that in another 70 years, Walter's juicer will still work, but you won't find any working examples of juicers from 2022. It should be obvious to most people at this point that any appliance with the word "…

Isn't there something to be said for the volume of anecdotal evidence of older appliances of higher quality? Like, is it really survivor bias if older appliances have a (perceived) significantly higher probability of lasting? Sure, some items may not have lasted, some may be flukes, but if you compare the relative quantities of "older appliances still working" vs "new appliances still working", the proportion of olde…

It's the proliferation of credit combined with increasing ubiquity of equating consumerism with success.

Using other people's money to act like you can afford the things that other people who have much more money than you can actually afford.

The easier and more common this has gotten, the crummier deal everyone ends up getting for their money.

Back when average consumers still had to save money for years before making big-ticket purchases, the shrewdest of manufacturers achieved the greatest success with product lifetimes having quite good multiples of those saving years.

When that became no longer as much of an issue, then never mind.

Expanded credit opened up opportunities for spendthrifts to dominate, who love to consume so much that they replace purchases that are still perfectly good after a few years anyway.

Remember all those 70-year-old juicers where there's far more in the landfills than remaining in the kitchen? Most of those were landfilled while they were still working.

Re: O Holy Crap

#302

Post by Tepix »

docandrew wrote: post #205
Tepix wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Juicero you mean? That was a great success... /s

Funnily enough, Juicero is a great example of a rugged product. It had ridiculously over-engineered mechanicals and a very beefy motor. The whole concept was silly and the business model was ridiculous, but it was built to last!

Does it even work without a cloud subscription? And doesn't it require a supply of special containers?

Re: O Holy Crap

#303

Post by teekert »

Jupe wrote: post #59
teekert wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It keeps the vacuum, it's really the brush head with the rotating brush and leds that fails periodically. Feel like as I move some conctact are broken and restored.

Sorry to hear that. We had a few cordless vacs - each one has died due to the battery. No replacements available :/ Even the very expensive Dyson. So far, my Dewalt cordless vac (which has a replaceable battery, by design, since it's a Dewalt) works OK. It's a mini shop-vac, but we pull it out for various household uses as needed.

Yeah, if this one really fails I'm going for this Makita [0] or similar, I have a bunch of those batteries + double fast charger already and the price seems right, although perhaps it will function less well, it seems to be a lot simpler of a device (plus, I love anything with those batteries, it's an addiction ;)).

[0] https://www.makitatools.com/products/details/XLC02ZB

Re: O Holy Crap

#304

Post by bombcar »

Dan_- wrote: post #293
thewebcount wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed Queen washers are all tiny, though. Our current LG (a company I despise, but had the highest CR rating by far), is something like 5 cubic feet. The Speed Queens were all in the 3 cubic feet range. Depending on family size, amount of bedding, etc., something that small can be a real pain to deal with.

Not true on the usefulness. Family of 5 here with a SQ front loader. It does everything we need, including cloth diapers, and any time we have needed to repair it, parts have been readily available from multiple suppliers.

My experience has been that you can “load” the Queens a bit higher even if the space is a bit smaller. Then again I went with a top loaded to get the ability to soak without using the sink. Maybe someday I’ll go like a friend and have both front and top. :)

Re: O Holy Crap

#305

Post by rapjr9 »

Have there been any scientific estimates of how much planned obsolescence costs the world? Planned obsolescence is basically the definition of unsustainable and makes the climate crisis worse in a not-very-visible way. There do seem to be some studies:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=the+...

I had a VW Cabrio and I noticed that they fine tuned the metallurgy; the stock exhaust system was designed to only last one to two years, the brake rotors were designed to fail after 5 years, suspension components, etc. This is very difficult for a customer to assess the quality of, no one can afford a metallurgical analysis of the steel in their car. Even a Consumer Reports type of ratings company can't do that kind of testing. At best, after 5-10 years, people note a particular car is less reliable and has degraded faster than other similar cars, but by then lots of people own the car.

That said, sometimes there are good reasons to ensure a product will only last a set number of years, for example if you think safety standards will evolve so that old stuff should be phased out after a time. A car from 1977 won't have air bags, a crash cage, roll bars, and maybe only power "assisted" steering and braking. Businesses often replace some things on a specific schedule whether it appears to need it or not, because they are known to fail after a while and the failure mode causes bigger problems. Maybe some products should have a "replace by" date just like food as a safety measure, sprockets on chain saws for example.

Inflation also erodes our perception of the value we should get for a specific price. A $5 manual can opener purchased in 1980 may have lasted 42 years, but if you buy a $5 can opener today it is going to be cheaply made because that $5 opener would actually cost $17.43 today. Some product categories, like large appliances, have obviously degraded in quality though, which suggests silent collusion.

Re: O Holy Crap

#306

Post by teekert »

dave78 wrote: post #97
nonameiguess wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this issue in my house that was built six years ago. Lights going out all over the place that are supposed to have really long lives. When I finally replaced a few of them, it didn't seem to be the lights. The lazy ass subcontractors hired by the worthless builder installed a bunch of the wiring incorrectly. Every light I have replaced so far wasn't even grounded. Ground wire just flapping in the wind.

A missing ground connection would have no effect on the light bulbs.

Was going to say this, does a bulb even have a connection for "ground", I never saw that. Some armatures do though...

Re: O Holy Crap

#307

Post by carapace »

ejb999 wrote: post #281
kwhitefoot wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have laws like it in Norway too. Old appliances can be taken to the local recycling centre or to any shop that sells appliances of the same general type. All shops that sell electrical goods have to be willing to take back discarded appliances even if they did not sell that specific article or even brand.

taking them back is good, I guess, but if they take them back and then throw them into a landfill, what has been accomplished?

No, that's the whole point (as far as I understand it): the manufacturers can't just throw it in a landfill, the law says they have to e.g. disassemble it and reuse or recycle the parts.

Re: O Holy Crap

#308

Post by docandrew »

Tepix wrote: post #302
docandrew wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, Juicero is a great example of a rugged product. It had ridiculously over-engineered mechanicals and a very beefy motor. The whole concept was silly and the business model was ridiculous, but it was built to last!

Does it even work without a cloud subscription? And doesn't it require a supply of special containers?

I mean, the whole idea of an internet-connected device to squeeze a juice pouch is silly, and I’m sure the additional DRM makes them worthless, but the mechanical engineering was apparently well-done: https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/

Re: O Holy Crap

#309

Post by jaredhallen »

mauvehaus wrote: post #276
cfeduke wrote: post #42

The thing in this space that has always bothered me was the simple can opener. (For those not in the US, yes, in the US we still need can openers.) The new ones which can be purchased in the grocery store break within a month or two. I don't even want to think about modern electric openers. I found a used vintage can opener from the 1970s on eBay six years ago and use it practically every day; as it was used it cost…

You want a swing-a-way can opener. They make them like they used to.

I haven't tried a new one, but good to hear you've had good luck. We have one that belonged to my wife's grandmother. We've been using it about 12 years. It started to perform poorly about 8 years ago, and was replaced with something new at the time. When the new one turned out to be unable to actually open a can, I ended up oiling and sharpening the swing away, and it performed like new. It started deteriorating again recently, so I saved myself the frustration and just did the maintenance again. Hopefully I'll be good for another 8 years or so.

Re: O Holy Crap

#310

Post by bombela »

bdcravens wrote: post #243
taylodl wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People forget things used to cost a lot of money. I remember when our family bought our first color TV set back in the early 70's. You can buy a 65" HDTV set today for the same amount of money - and that's in today's dollars which are significantly less valuable than the dollars in the early 70's! That TV didn't last 20 years - it was a huge hassle continually testing and replacing tubes. Meanwhile I bought a 55" HDT…

In our new house this summer, I sprung for a 77" LG C2 OLED. Almost embarassed by it looking back, since I could have bought a 75" "standard" 4K TV for about 1/4 the price.

Those screens are so good, I use our LG OLED TV as a computer screen more often than to watch movies. In fact I now feel uneasy working on standard 60hz 4k LCD monitors.
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