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Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

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171–180 of 191 posts

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company that uses the MBA reductionist framework inevitably ends up scamming the customers, the employees, society, taxpayers, the environment, politics, and everything that exists. It is a virus that eats reality and turns it into money. If humanity is to survive, MBAs have to be outlawed and banished from any form of administration. Draining everyone, that is what they exist for. Tax evasion, rampant corrupti…

I don't think your comment addresses my main point though. Even if we outlawed MBAs, we'd still have a business environment in which companies that maximize their profitability potentially outcompete more customer-centric companies. A profit-maximizing strategy potentially gives them more money, which in turn lets them lower their prices, ramp up faster in newer markets, etc. I don't think it matters much whether or…

Let's start by outlawing MBAs as a good first step. We can figure out the rest as we go.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#172
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to cook when you're not in the kitchen, so it's not surprising that an excellent oven like JennAir skimps on what is at best a marginally useful marketing ploy.

There are two separate "remote start" philosophies - one is "put item in oven before leaving, remotely turn on at X time, done when home" which is pretty clearly what the JennAir is aiming towards. The other is "I want to preheat the oven" which is what the other leans towards. Both honestly skeeve me out; I wouldn't want to use it unless I had remote cameras and could confirm the oven was empty/only had what I wante…

OP here. I specifically bought this oven with remote start for preheating only. Preheating to 400 degrees easily takes 15 minutes. I want to get home and toss the food into the oven right away, not wait another 15 minutes just to start cooking after I've arrived home.

> Both honestly skeeve me out;

I'd rather set remote start from the oven itself, but it's not an option. App only.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. Our house came with a fancy IoT piezoshit dishwasher that had three pumps in it; one died within a year, the second died a year later, and after $800 spent fixing it we were quoted another $800 to fix the control panel on top of the door once it got steamed to death. I replaced it with the cheapest washer Lowe's had for $425 and it's been painless for years. It's what a landlord would have done. Tech for domesti…

> Tech for domestic life hasn't advanced since the 1970s. I think tech for domestic life has clearly regressed since the 1970s.

Heh, true.

Samsung usually disappoints but their AirDresser (and the LG Studio) are innovative at least.

https://www.samsung.com/us/air-dresser/

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, when something goes extinct I'd say that's evidence that it isn't viable. That's the paradox of capitalism: anything that can be ruined eventually will be. I'd pay 2x or 3x for 30yr appliances for environmental reasons, but I don't think the company that makes such a thing could raise the capital to build them in the first place.

> when something goes extinct I'd say that's evidence that it isn't viable. It depends on the thing, but in general I don't think that assumption is terribly valid. The problem is that "viable" and "maximally profitable" are two different things. Companies have decided to chase the latter exclusively -- but that's a choice to satisfy short-term greed, it's not a reflection on what a viable business has to look like.…

I don't think choice is involved here, public and capital-financed companies that aren't maximally greedy get eaten by those that are. When your competitors raise enough capital to undercut you in the short term, you don't survive to the long term unless you raise more capital as well, and you can't both offer the highest returns, one of you is going to end up buying the other, and only after all the corners have been cut and every customer that can be screwed has been screwed. It's a race to the bottom that doesn't necessarily have a solution. Isn't this essentially how Maytag went tits up? To compete with the cheap foreign appliances they took on a bunch of debt, and then cut costs to service the debt, resulting in the "amanatags" that destroyed the reputation for quality they'd built over 3-4 generations?

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#175
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works for some things, but not others. For example, commercial laundry equipment comes from VERY FEW manufacturers, and you may never have heard of UniMac https://unimac.com/product/washer-extractors/uw-series-high-... but you probably have heard of their little brother, Speed Queen. Blendtec is another example. But some things are vastly different between commercial and residential. Commercial ovens often have…

Absolutely LOVE our Blendtec blendeer. That thing can chop up almost anything! My only regret is not getting the variant that came with a heating coil for making soups.

The Blendtec is a beast; I'm just sad I'll probably never have a real excuse to move to the quiet https://www.blendtec.com/products/professional-800 because my existing one will never die.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#176

Has anyone noticed how appliances and even consumer electronics tend to lend themselves to having too many models? I mean that it seems if I bought an LG 30" Range Model ABC in NYC and you bought one in LA, your model is ABC-D. Manufacturers seem to be constantly changing parts, models, BOMs. Is this because of just in time production? Different parts at difficult times means different variations? It makes it IMPOSSI…

I've noticed this too. I always assumed it was meant to make price comparison more difficult for consumers.

A recent FTC lawsuit [1] made me realize it could also be meant to prevent the seller's platform from doing price comparison ("if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible")

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#177

Are Miele and Sub-Zero/Wolf still reliable?

The condenser unit on my Miele heat pump clothes dryer just went out after less than two and a half years. It's a $1500 out of warranty repair on a $2K dryer, and the part will take a month to arrive.

Could be bad luck, though I see a fair number of similar complaints online. I wouldn't buy again.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two separate "remote start" philosophies - one is "put item in oven before leaving, remotely turn on at X time, done when home" which is pretty clearly what the JennAir is aiming towards. The other is "I want to preheat the oven" which is what the other leans towards. Both honestly skeeve me out; I wouldn't want to use it unless I had remote cameras and could confirm the oven was empty/only had what I wante…

> one is "put item in oven before leaving, remotely turn on at X time, done when home" which is pretty clearly what the JennAir is aiming towards. Almost all ovens have been able to do that since at least the '60s. You don't turn on the oven remotely, you set a clock that tells the oven when to turn on.

That's what my 1960's JennAir does. It has two clocks you can set in addition to the one that tells time: one to turn on the oven at a prescribed time, and another to turn it off.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some of the brands that you’ve seen that have those implemented-to-a-higher-standard features? I’m in the market for a new set of everything and would appreciate the insight.

Miele, it also is "expensive". On the long term is the cheaper option.

Maybe on average.

Certainly isn't cheaper for my Miele dishwasher that is broken (online search suggests a fucked relay).

I am somewhat cynical about buying expensive "quality" brands after being burnt a few times.

Re: Expensive fridges are dying, leading to fraud claims

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miele, it also is "expensive". On the long term is the cheaper option.

Our previous vacuum cleaner was a Miele. It died after 20 years of use. The near identical new model still works perfectly after 5+ years. Those things are amazing.

I have a Miele canister vacuum. It’s great. I have a Miele HX1 cordless vacuum. It was outrageously expensive and never worked. Completely awful. Couldn’t suck up a cheerio off the floor. A cheap crappy Chinese Dyson clone worked many, many times better. Moral of the story, brands are BS.
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