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A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

mstdn.social

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Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#91

Post by masklinn »

rascul wrote: post #4

A lot of those features are available in today's fridges. Also, they use less power today. And you really don't have to get one with wifi and a touchscreen.

A lot of those features also seem quite debatable.

- The big pile of fruits and veggies is a good way to pressure-bruise them, and also to trap ethylene, and you can usually get the crisper drawers out so not sure I see the difference.

- Special compartments for butter and cheese are a completely unnecessary lack of flexibility.

- Metal roll-out trays / drawers exist in high-end fridges, there are also drawer fridges and freezers for some use cases (mostly compact kitchens / appartments where you don't have the space for swing doors).

- The ice cube thing seems like a complete mis-feature, there are 4 ice cube trays integrated which seems fine, why would you move those to a bucket of ice cubes losing 1/3rd the freezer space and congealing the cubes together? If you regularly need industrial quantities of ice cubes, getting a quarter-size (100L) chest freezer seems like a better idea. Or an upright if you have a lot of frozen stuff which you need regular access to (or you don't have a cellar to put a half or full-size chest in).

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#92

Post by Retric »

photonerd wrote: post #47
passwordoops wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

So you needed to replace 7 fridges in 16 years? You’re either a crazy statistical outlier or doing something very very wrong.

Something seriously wrong with your houses electrical supply is the obvious explanation but it’s far from the only possibility.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#93

Post by [deleted] »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #65
passwordoops wrote: post #18

Earlier 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

Why doesn't everyone have old fridges then? You only buy new when the old one breaks down right? But if the old ones were so sturdy why were they all replaced? I expect there's some survivorship bias at play here.

[deleted]

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#94

Post by jy14898 »

photonerd wrote: post #47
passwordoops wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

7 fridges over 16 years is crazy, do you live in a hot climate?

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#95

Post by avereveard »

c-linkage wrote: post #37

My wife is a brute[1]. She's broken two of the plastic refrigerator drawers -- the vegetable drawer and the deli drawer -- which were impossible to repair. Yes, I tried super glue, but the bond never held. It's cost me $400 to replace both drawers -- 1/3 the cost of a new refrigerator. I wish I had one of these refrigerators; they look virtually unbreakable! And even if it did break, I could hammer it back into shape…

You need something for cold temperatures like two component epoxy based glues, not cyanoacrylates

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#96

Post by bombcar »

photonerd wrote: post #47
passwordoops wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

Survivorship bias and "when do I toss it" - I have a freezer/fridge thing from Best Buy (something like this but it was about $300 on clearance: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-13-8-cu-ft-garage-read... ) that literally is one box that you can dial in a temperature on. It had wifi for some unknown reason that never worked, but still pitifully broadcasts a wifi hotspot. It's been running for five years now, and it can only die by ceasing to freeze; there's nothing else to break.

The fridge in the kitchen, however, has various features, some of which would cause me to throw it away even if it was still functioning as a fridge/freezer - for example, if the ice maker died, I might just replace the whole thing, instead of spending $300 to replace the ice maker, especially if it's a metric pain in the ass to do so.

I try to take a look at repair prices and parts now before buying, because a $500 appliance where the likely breaking parts cost $500 is unlikely to be something that lasts long-term.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#97

Post by gok »

starbugs wrote: post #3

> 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.

This is going to shock people, but appliance manufacturers in the 1950s also had shareholders.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#98

Post by UncleMeat »

ethbr0 wrote: post #16

1950-1970 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…

This fridge has an ice dispenser that requires you to use a tool to knock out a dozen ice cubes. My fridge has an ice dispenser that runs by itself until a big vessel of ice is full.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#99

Post by DSMan195276 »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #9
sdflhasjd wrote: post #2

I would hazard a guess and say this was probably expensive by today's standards.

Sure, but you'd buy once and that fridge problem was sorted for a few decades. Over the long term you paid significantly less because you weren't replacing a broken fridge every few years. If problems did crop up appliance repair was a cost effective long term fix. Ain't designed obsolescence a wonder?

I think the point is more that you can buy expensive fridges today that could last that long - people don't because they care more about spending less on a fridge.
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