This is why an increasing number of consumers go with the more is less when shopping for appliances. I don't need my fridge or washing machine to have all these bells and whistles. I just need it to do its main job, and do it well with a minimum of components that can fail, and make sure it's running reliably.

My newest appliance, a microwave, has a dial to set the time, a row of buttons to select the power level and a door handle. It's the best microwave I've ever owned. It was also the most expensive, but since it is intended for commercial kitchens, I expect it to last at least ten years.

I just bought a microwave. All the reviews I found for the Panasonic model (who apparently make the majority of microwaves) with the dial to set the time had a lot of people saying it failed after a year or two.

I never spent so much time looking for an appliance. I must have spent 6 hours looking at Amazon, Home Depot, Best Buy, etc, websites. There are so many models, sizes and types. The model that died was ~25 years old. It performed well, but the company doesn't make microwaves anymore (Sanyo)... at least I didn't see that brand when searching.

The is the same argument used by people who buy SpeedQueen washer dryers. But the technology in them is woefully old and not to mention very inefficient in its use of electricity and water.

The local mom and pop appliance shop stopped stocking SpeedQueen in the last five years and replaced it with Fisher and Paykel. Their baseline washer and dryer is where it's at. They have the simplicity of SpeedQueen in terms of how cheap/easy they are to repair and replace components, but are super high efficiency.

They use(d to use) more energy and water, but maybe they get the laundry cleaner or get it done faster. A washer repair tech on reddit said that after 2017 SpeedQueen went the same direction as all the others, but if you get an older one it might be a better machine, depending on the model.

They brought back the classic model for 2019, it's called the TC5: https://speedqueen.com/products/home-products/top-load-washe...

I can see the efficiency argument, but arguing that the technology is old seems odd to me. What does it matter how old the technology is if it works?

What's more inefficient: the extra electricity and water of older machines, or the extra waste, manufacturing, and shipping caused by shorter replacement cycles?

I know many people who have had to replace or service their "high efficiency" machines within 5-10 years, while many old washers seem to last at least 20 years without service. Given the electronics and specialty parts in the new machines, it seems doubtful that you could keep one of them in service for more than 15 years.

Businesses use that principal when buying equipment, then use it to build stuff that violates it.

That's exactly why I tell people to buy commercial. Sure they're 2 or 3 times the price. They'll also last 20+ years and need simple maintenance and repairs.

One anecdote about that:

Do your research. I witnessed an office where the CEO's partner was an interior decorator, and said partner was responsible for the office construction.

In the opulent kitchen, they put two commercial dishwashers, the kind where you preload the dishes onto a kind of rack, and slide the whole rack into the dishwasher in one step.

Greatly increases utilization of such dishwashers, because the dirty dishes can be queued up for washing, and the clean ones can be unloaded and put away while the dishwasher is running.

These dishwashers were designed around maximizing utilization during busy periods. But.

In an office kitchen, they would be run once or twice a day most of the time, with bursts only happening during infrequent events. This turned out to be an unexpected problem.

It seems the dishwashers were full of steel for durability, and they needed to run a load to warm up. Once warm, they could to load after load at high speed. But when only doing one load a day, they wouldn't clean the dishes properly.

The vendor told them this and suggested they have one "prosumer" model and one commercial model for when they had a catered event, but this displeased the CEO's partner, so the company was stuck with two commercial units.

They learned to run an empty load every day before running a full load, wasting enough time that the dishwasher lost its speed advantage. It also wasted water and energy do do one preload for each daily load.

Something to think about when buying commercial. It's usually ok, but sometimes, a commercial unit has tradeoffs that will gravely undermine its ability to function in a home or office.

> Something to think about when buying commercial.

You make a very good point, but I don't think that whether its commercial or not is what you need to look at. The intended use case is. There are several commercial use dishwashers, for instance, that are intended for relatively infrequent use. The ones you describe were intended for heavy-duty restaurant use -- that's the real mismatch, not the fact that they were built for commercial use.

But being a residential model means EPA restrictions, which means it automatically sucks. So limiting to commercial should still be step 1. Then look at use case.

The infrequent commercial resturant / office kitchen models you mention are good, but lab/ medical models are what I imagine most people want.

You can get them based on power and water availability (real 240v+ hot water heating element!!!), high pressure pumps, all stainless parts, sanitary cleaning in under 10 mins, and can use active heating for drying. Fully programmable wash cycles, both time and temperature, but in an under counter residential-like form factor. Get one of these, plus some fryer clean out detergent, and you're set.

Also, they're easily 3-10x the price of higher end residential models.

That is a beautiful example of more-is-less. Anyone understanding the principle would never have bought those dishwashers.

My brother and I once toyed with the idea to build a website that explored, compared and offered sources for commercial, or at least, higher-grade alternatives to consumer-level fixtures, valves, switches, HVAC and appliances. A site aimed at people who are doing remodels or building anew. Why not the marine-grade brass quarter-turn valve for the water mains or toilets? Or the much-superior commercial-grade sillcocks? Gas furnaces with electric/gas fan motors that continue to function in a power-outage?

In the scheme of a remodel or new-construction adding the high-quality, durable options is a small expense and saves on very expensive repairs down the road where you have to pay $2,000 to replace an item that would only have cost a few dollars more to install one that will almost never need replacing.

Alas, we never did anything with the idea.

This is a fantastic idea. It's kind of the opposite or at least going in a tangential direction from something like Wirecutter. Instead of recommending the solution that will be merely adequate for the majority of people you would recommend the solution that would be the absolute best but may appeal to a smaller audience.

I like this idea.

You also hit on something that I think too many people don't think of when they're pricing stuff. People tend to look at the sticker price alone, not the total cost of ownership. I've found that often (but certainly not always), the more initially expensive but high-quality stuff will end up being cheaper in the long run.

I think you meant 'less is more'?

I think "more is less" is more accurate. These days, my list of antifeatures is more of a consideration than desired features when shopping for an appliance.

My TV has a terrible display but doesn't know how to connect to the internet, for example.

I’m sure you’re aware, but you can achieve the same by getting a tv that is full of spyware but has a nice screen, then not connecting it to the internet or blocking it at firewall/Pihole or similar.

I did this with my 4k "Smart" TV. I've never connected it to the ethernet, nor have I configured the wifi. It acts as a dumb monitor and that's what I want.

Just don't give the new TV's your network password and you'll be fine, and you can enjoy the new screen types, resolution, technology.

Just don't give the new TV's your network password and you'll be fine.

I thought "hey that's not right" for a second too. I've never heard "more is less"... but technically they're equivalent.

Less is more, more is less. Less is better, more is worse.

When you put it that way, yes I can see that the original phrasing is correct. Like you, I am used to the opposite phrasing.

The problem is that infinite growth is impossible - there’s only so many people who need a smartphone, washing machine, etc. Once they all have it then your revenue will only be the average replacement rate as the old devices fail.

Businesses should be happy with stable revenue once they reach that point, instead they desperately try to get more, risking the company’s reputation and/or legal issues (not specifically in this case but I’m sure there are companies that did illegal stuff just to get more profit).

The current idea of running a business is absolutely unsustainable.

I think that the bigger issue is that corporations have figured out that people don't know how to multiply and are willing to pay far more money as periodic payments than they are as a one time expense.

On this water filter thing, the fridge costs about $1500. Suppose it lasts 10 years, and you replace the $55 water filter every six months. That's $1100 worth of water filters! The water filters almost double the cost of the fridge!

Profit-wise, on a $1500 fridge, it's a competitive market. You're looking at multiple brands, so GE probably has a profit of $100 at most on the fridge. On the water filters though, we know that the generic one sells for $19 and the branded one is $55. That suggests that GE probably makes a profit of at least $20 on the filter. Over the life of the fridge, that's $400 in profit -- 80% of the profit of the fridge is in the filters! If third parties are threatening that profit by making knockoffs, of course GE is going to take countermeasures to protect 80% of their profit.

I don't think it's the bigger issue.

Even in the water filter scenario, let's assume everyone has this fridge and is regularly buying filters. They had temporary growth in revenue but now that everyone has fridges + filters it's mostly stable again.

Do you think they'll stop there? The unsustainable idea we have of running a business would suggest they should be doing something else to even further increase the profits.

It's not just a "name brand costs more!!!" situation.

The name-brand GE filters (for the type I used to buy) eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, plus "5 trace pharmaceuticals" and 15 other contaminants.

The bargain bin filters (HDX, in this scenario) only eliminate/reduce lead, chlorine, "tastes and odors."

GE - https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Genuine-MWF-Water-Filter-for-...

HDX - https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-Water-Filter-for-GE-Refriger...

It looks to me like both of them are an activated carbon filter. They're going to filter the same things.

You do realize that in most of the cases name brand is store brand are made by the same companies on the same lines and the customers are paying for the label which you know due to marketing?

I literally just said that was not the case in this scenario and I provided evidence why.

If you can demonstrate that the store brand filters are the same, despite not advertising the ability to filter the same chemicals and pharmaceuticals then sure, you win.

My point was that the “name-brand costs more for no reason” is not always true. FFS

It is probably an identical filter made by the same factory with a different description written by different people because different agencies were involved.

I have no interest in buying and disassembling the filters to compare them but since they are both charcoal filters they are the same. If they were not, then one of them would be advertised as a charcoal filter and the other one would be advertised as a charcoal filter + some other filter.

Which of those contaminants are a actually in your water?

As this builds up there will be a wide open market opportunity for a privacy-conscious appliance manufacturer. Maybe combined with good/minimalist design like Nest - minus the forced cloud stuff. Plus some design work on the internals to make them easy to repair/replace parts.

Shenzhen and other places is full of talent capable of fulfilling this niche.

All it takes is a brave soul to go out and try it.

>privacy-conscious appliance manufacturer.... like Nest

Nest is now owned by Google. Nest also had installed microphones in their units without telling consumers prior to being purchased by Google.

Yes... which I mentioned in the very next sentence. Way to take the Nest part completely out of context, which I was referencing only in regards to offering a clean/minimal designed home appliances.

I'm convinced privacy-conscious smart products which keep things as local as possible combined with good simple design is applicable to so many niches. Including routers.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like your original comment left out the "Maybe combined with good/minimalist design...".

My fear is that the only way to get decent industrial design, like the nest, is to finance it with consumer spying.

My thermostat from 1990 still works fine. It will have to continue to work fine for a while longer until I can trust more modern ones. If you connect to the internet you have no business controlling my house's heat. I'm not paying $$$ to someone to get my heat back on.

Well that's the current standard model so that's understandable. But I think consumers, especially early adopters and even Apple execs, are becoming conscious of the need and demand for privacy.

If I was a VC I'd be looking for someone to invest in which offers both modern digitized equipment without the total privacy/security sacrifice.

Heads of departments who sign off on trash like this should be summarily fired.

They'll probably be promoted if they just play the politician or lobbyist. They could give any reason at all and pretend it's justified by various basic buzz words like "protecting the consumer" and citing recent stories about counterfit products. Basically, inflate the danger to consumers from counterfits and confuse them with bullshit marketing lingo about knowing what's best for your customers. This strategy might work for those Washington SB 4799 hearings, those lobbyists I've seen giving their comments are incredibly slimy and good at evading actual concerns consumers have.

To play the devils advocate here (and to be frank, i think people should be able to use compatible products), it's possible the manufacture is concerned that products they didn't make could cause an issue. I.e. filter is too restrictive and burns out the pump. Then the fridge comes in for warranty repair and there's no way of proving what caused the issue. From the perspective of the manufacture, i kind of get it, but i still think there has to be a better middle-ground than it stops providing a service.

Yes, the middle ground is called designing the pump so it doesn't burn out if the filter doesn't allow the right amount of water through. Having an RFID chip doesn't prevent the genuine filter from becoming clogged.

The RFID chip doesn't prevent that, but the fridge will no longer dispense water after a certain number of gallons passes through the filter.

I don't disagree, but i've been in the room when people make absurd decisions like this and need to be discouraged to make a more rational decision. On that basis, I'm just saying perhaps they're not evil, but they're certainly not trying very hard and potentially not smart either.

Would something like a "using unauthorized filters voids your warranty" agreement suffice? I can understand the manufacturer's desire to avoid costly repairs caused by shoddy aftermarket parts, but I don't understand the idea of rendering the end product totally unusable.

To put it another way, should my car stop running entirely if it detects that I'm using a "non-GM-certified" cabin air filter?

You would definitely want that. Here's a common every day example. Imagine for example you use the wrong oil that destroys your engine and when GM inspects the oil they say it was non certified so you need to pay 5k in repairs... I have no doubt you would not have minded if the engine refused to start if it detected the wrong thing.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I would much rather have some sort of warning than to have the decision made for me. If an indicator in the dash turned on saying "the oil is not the correct viscosity," then I would be able to decide to not run the vehicle.

Imagine you were stranded somewhere and the only option was to use the wrong oil. Sure, it may destroy the vehicle, but at least you would be able to run the vehicle and (hopefully) get to safety before your engine block melts. My issue is when the decision has been made that "you _might_ break it, so we've taken the choice away."

Another example might be, should users not be allowed to install programs on their computer because those programs might interfere with the computer's performance?

If it only detected actually wrong oil, that's a reasonable design. But that would basically never be the design goal.

And you should never have a warranty voided for doing an unauthorized but valid adjustment/repair.

> I have no doubt you would not have minded if the engine refused to start if it detected the wrong thing

In your example, I still would absolutely have minded such enforced nonsense.

Penzoil, Mobil 1, Castrol, Total, ProCare, Valvoline and even Pep Boys brand disagrees.

How about Dollar General brand? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js94bcbt5nU

If they are building a device to such tight design tolerances, it was doomed to failure from the start even with 'proper' parts. The second it hits a factory floor the specs are going to be pushing the absolute limits of quality control testing.

> From the perspective of the manufacture, i kind of get it,

From the perspective of the manufacturer, it's either a fairly blatant cash grab or poor design.

There are standardized dumb filter cartridges. GE already makes them.

I don’t think it’s the end of anything. This is just normal capitalism.

Late stage capitalism is where the majority of growth comes from anti-fearures instead of consumer desires.

This is the end result of post-modern, late stage capitalism. It will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. What we're seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg.

https://external-preview.redd.it/qRggs-k588dZAM2uBK3FH4xOih9...

They also do a lot of "financial engineering", like stock buy backs. All these machinations to benefit the very few at the top. It's like the last dash for a land grab. Get it while you can, and it will all end in tears.