Decades of value engineering reduced cost of appliances that consumer electronics makers need to add bell and whistles to capture more value i.e. there's recent article about Samsung wanting to milk billions in live services from smart appliances. It's dumb but it is what it is when fridge design reach marginal returns on core features like keeping things cold.
A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
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Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#482Nice to see reposted previously viral tweets+videos on Mastodon. Mastodon has finally made it as a social network, I guess.
https://twitter.com/search?q=fridge%2070%20years&src=typed_q...
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#483A side not I always wondered why don't we have refrigerator models that are "split system" as we have with ACs. As it stands now it's a heat pump that pumps the heat from your refrigerator into your home. Wouldn't it be possible to create way more energy efficient model that has an outside body? Or even better connects to the AC body you already have outside? Like in the summer it would "help" the AC by being another…
Modern home refrigerators are efficient enough thanks to insulation materials and efficient heat pump. Adding external unit just for 500kWh/y to 300kWh/y is not what we want.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#484People love cheap things.
Cheap things mean there are made disposable.
We have way more options today to make cheap disposable goods than what existed 70 years ago.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that usually breaks on my refrigerators is the plastic shelves. They just don't seem designed to last more than 4 or 5 years at the most. I'm not sure how to filter for "has shelves that don't decompose when kept cool."
I have never seen or heard of that happening. Are they being overloaded?
I don't think so. Just a typically loaded fridge. The shelfs have metal arms and then plastic holding the glass to the metal. Structurally the weight is on the plastic though and the plastic breaks. This is on a 12 year old LG refrigerator that works just fine on staying cool.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that usually breaks on my refrigerators is the plastic shelves. They just don't seem designed to last more than 4 or 5 years at the most. I'm not sure how to filter for "has shelves that don't decompose when kept cool."
I've never seen fridge plastic decompose. What are you doing to those materials that makes them do that? I've never in my entire life's existence seen plastic inside a fridge that has "decomposed". I've just seen them get grey/cloudy over time if they're clear-plastic, and maybe crack. Besides that, indestructible.
The white plastic just stops being able to hold the glass shelves to the metal brackets and chips/cracks until it can no longer hold weight. This is a 12 year old LG refrigerator.
Decompose is probably not the right word, but it loses whatever property makes plastic usually last a long time.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that the reason they stopped getting made was influx of dramatically cheaper toasters, at a time when the idea of paying top dollar for premium kitchen tools was not very common. I'm also pretty sure that fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design. It would just result in a ~$100+ toaster. The crazy thing is is that _there are more expensive toasters than that_, that are basic…
Toasters are one of the more obvious appliances to show how bad things have become. Outside of getting one of those conveyor-belt continuous restaurant toasters, I simply cannot find a new toaster at any price point that does a good job of making toast. Even low-end toasters from the '60s outperform high-end toasters these days.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have also wondered if internet-connected fridges use more electricity. Having a computer and touchscreen and wifi collecting data 24/7 and sending it to samsung can't be cheap power-wise.
An internet-connected fridge might use a tiny amount of additional electricity (probably a couple watts when active, and much less when idle, which should be most of the time). But this is dwarfed by the massive improvements in refrigerator efficiency over the last 70 years. A modern refrigerator uses less than a third of the energy of a 1960's-era fridge while also having considerably more space for food.
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Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#489Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but I'd bet the one we see in the video is probably still working, while I'm on my third fridge in 20 years. I think that negates any energy efficiency gains
Remember when looking at old technology that still works Survivorship Bias is a thing to be aware of. Yes, that elderly family member with the 1950’s fridge makes us jealous. But how many of their friends who bought that same fridge had to upgrade because theirs crapped out? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Part of "Survivorship Bias" is also "repairability".
My father used to replace the control thermostat in our refrigerator about every 5 years and the compressor somewhere between every 10-15 years.