Except its rare to see actual documented proof that this is a real practice in reputable industry. Sure it must happen (or seem to happen as a unintended effect), but from a rational perspective if Samsung does this then I'll switch to LG, thus costing Samsung business and reputation. I have no brand loyalty so it doesn't make sense to make unreliable products. I, like any consumer, get pissed off and I switch to other brands at the drop of a hat. I'll also address the article point by point:
> Motors last about 1/3 to 1/4 as long as they used to.
That's questionable, but lowered motor life is probably in the cards due to efficiency gains. Modern motors are far more efficient than old ones and the more efficient designs are simply more delicate for a variety of reasons not the least of it is lighter materials and running closer to their optimal maximum which means more wear and running hotter in general. Also the reduction of hazardous materials and other regulations means we can't just use environmentally dangerous materials like lead willy-nilly anymore. I recently read that due to laziness and consumer ignorance, your average ceiling fan was something like 30% efficient up until fairly recently. So you were burning a good 75-100 watts on what should have been 15-30watt usage. These manufacturers just used these old designs for decades, thus increasing our electric bills and adding to pollution. Consumers pick up the fan and feel its "heavy" due to this old motor and think its "quality." Its really just a waste of electricity.
>Not enough competition.
I just bought all new appliances for my house a few years back. If anything, I was bowled over by all the players in this space and had to do a lot of legwork in regards to reviews. I really don't think lack of competition is an issue.
>Refrigerator door seals are glued on now instead of screwed on
This is a generalization. For my current and previous fridge they were screwed on. Even then, strong glues could hold these for their expected two decade lifetime if done correctly. Again, the author can't, or won't, give us specifics here. Certainly cheap and poorly engineered brands exist. Name and shame. Don't generalize.
>They can often be found for $300 at big box retailers, but they usually break within 2-3 years.
10+ years on my last dishwasher before I moved and 4 in on my current one. No issues and my current one is a fairly low-end Samsung. I do ok financially, but I'm cheap. My samsung is a cheap knock-off of the 'real' Bosch at the store. It even mimmicks its styling. So yeah, I'm not buying rich guy stuff here. Also, we're parents so we run that thing almost everyday.
>There is too much confusion over who is making quality appliances.
10-20 minutes reading reviews isn't asking a lot. I spend more time reading reviews of office chairs or video games, let alone $500+ appliances I depend on for my daily living.
>Newer appliances start rusting within even a year or two whereas I’ve seen washers and dryers and other appliances from 40 years ago that are still rust free.
I can't remember the last time I saw rust on a modern appliance. Maybe this is limited to one vendor using cheap paint. I wish the author tried to be specific. Rust on the stuff I grew up with was everywhere. I remember trying hard not to cut my hand while doing the laundry. I remember my dad buying rustoliem all the time because everything rusted back then. We didn't have clear-coats as an industry norm and stainless steel, a mid-range finishing today, was rich guy and restaurant only stuff back then. We had nice thick but brittle paint, but if you chip that, and don't catch it on time, then you got rust.
> If an old refrigerator or freezer would last 40-50 years before being replaced
These were serious edge cases and as an old-timer I remember having a repair tech come out periodically and my parents paying fairly significant bills to fix this stuff. Sure they "lasted" only because we were constantly replacing their innards.
>Elon Musk would have already started working on building a better appliance that runs off a battery bank and solar.
If you think today's stuff is overly engineered and delicate, wait until you start dealing with the pita that li-ion batteries are and how short their effective lifetimes are with daily use. Let alone running solar and how much that'll cost to install within code on your roof and how much that'll increase the cost the next time you re-do your roof. I have cheap-ish electricity and natural gas available in my basement. I'm good, thanks.
Seriously, this guy isnt a researcher or engineer, he's some guy who sells junk on craiglist. This post is one step above 'forwards from grandma' territory. This is classic fallacy of idealizing the past here. I imagine as a craigslist junk seller he doesn't see the old appliances our parents all threw away, he's just seeing a biased sample of all the stuff that were well maintained or had low usage, like buying a 30 year old car with 20,000 miles and bemoaning how 'cheap and crappy' modern cars are.
That said, the modern world isn't all roses. Because there are so many more manufacturers and so many budget brands, its easy to cheap out and get a lemon. Or there are so many lines, its sometimes unfair when you get a lemon model from a decent manufacturer. When I was a kid these things cost, fixed for inflation, a whole hell of a lot of money. And even in the late 70s and early 80s, in a normal non-ghetto but not rich Chicago neighborhood, I still watched old ladies scrub their laundry on washboards and hang them on laundry lines because of cost prohibitive issues. You either could afford for the reliable $1,000 GE washer or you couldn't. Lets not romanticize a time where everything was super expensive and which left a lot of people out in the cold.
Some people are going to buy the budget Amana that is crappier than the GE they grew up with, but it regularly goes on sale/clearance for $250 or so at Walmart. Sure beats the $700+ GE if you're poor and very much beats paying the laundromat. The take away here isn't modern things are terrible, its don't buy budget brands if you want quality.