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A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
51–60 of 531 posts
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#521950-1970 seems like a local optimum in UX that we've yet to surpass. My personal, completely-unsupported theory is it was a combination of 3 qualities. (1) New types of things, while unlike anything that came before, were still simple and understandable enough that someone without formal engineering training could understand their use and offer improvements . (2) Engineering was still seen as something that was appr…
I think for any long term products the designers of interface after they get to the optimum are just changing shit to keep themselves employed, while long time or professional users are just getting annoyed on having to re-learn stuff.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#53[deleted]
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#54Some of those fridges are refurbished and still around[1]! It's my dream to own one someday when my fridge from the 90's dies. Every couple years there's a HN link to a blog post about how those appliances were built better in the day. Couple highlights I remember were: - Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage - Motors had some changes so were actually built to las…
>Parts were dipped in paint rather than sprayed leading to fuller and thicker paint coverage Hopefully not lead paint?
It probably is: lead paint is much more durable and resistant, which is why it was everywhere in the 50s
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#55[deleted]
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#56The slide out shelves and the ice tray are nice, but the rest I would not want. It has a too specific use, e.g. ok you have a butter tray but what if you don't want to eat butter. What if a brand shows up that makes butter twice the size, now it doesn't fit anymore. Etc.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#57Earlier 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
I’ve had 8 fridges in 22 years, up until my latest I’ve they were all from this supposedly better age. All failed, in some cases disastrously. The only one that’s survived longer than a few years for me ? The new one. Going 6 years strong. Not everything on my new one is perfect—I managed to break the built in water jug—but I feel a lot of the replies here need to take into account survivorship bias.
What do you do to your fridges??? I'm in my 30's and have never had to replace a fridge.
Never had a "modern" fridge except as a kid. All looked like low budget fridges from the 80's or 90's.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#58> Thing is, producing crappy, cookie-cutter, uninspired, overpriced junk that falls apart within 5 years (generously speaking) pays more to the shareholders. That's how we got from there to here. This summarizes it quite well for me.
It's also a consequence of constant R&D improvements. We can make appliances that last for 20 years or more, sure, but then when 20 years pass you have an appliance that is 20 years old and doesn't have any of that new stuff that came out in the last 20 years.
And which of those things coming out in the last 20 years do people actually need? Wifi-enabled fridge? I'd rather have the features from that b/w clip.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also a consequence of constant R&D improvements. We can make appliances that last for 20 years or more, sure, but then when 20 years pass you have an appliance that is 20 years old and doesn't have any of that new stuff that came out in the last 20 years.
Well, I'll be the cranky old man today - I just want a box that keeps my food cold enough not to hurt me. That's really all I need and I imagine all I will need 20 years from now.
You don't even want to tweet from your fridge? Dude.
Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now
#60What about microwaves - two buttons - power and time. Right now you have 100000 buttons and everything is confusing.