Perhaps they cannot price in reliability? How many people know that Miele offers long lasting and repairable appliances, instead of just expensive ones?

I for one "know" this by weighing HN anecdotes I've seen over the years - couple dozen saying that they sell solid stuff, and one or two saying that they used to sell solid stuff, but are now following the trend of replacing metal components with cheap plastics. How do I evaluate that? Brand trust isn't that strong a signal.

The abstract problem is that the market is imperfect due to insufficient customer knowledge. I know my last washing machine lasted X years, but how that will compare to the new one from the same manufacturer, I don't know. The manufacturer also won't (really) tell me, just the usual fluff about quality.

So as a consumer, I am unable to decide objectively, just using rumours if there isn't a hard guarantee or a trustworthy evaluation of the quality of all products I could pick. In that situation, I will price in the uncertainty, I will evaluate the rumours and the tendency to produce crappier stuff over time. And when in doubt, buy 4 cheap short-lived washing machines instead of 1 for 4 times the price.

Isn't the warranty pretty much the metric of "how long it'll last", as expected by the manufacturer?

A long warranty, while not a guarantee, is pretty correlated to the product lifespan.

Not so simple. Many manufacturers advertise a long warranty and then, when things break, drag their feet, blame improper use or wear and tear, offer workarounds instead of repairs, etc.

A long warranty is only good if the manufacturer is trustworthy. But untrustworthy manufacturers are one of the causes of the whole problem.

A fix might be warranty terms defined by law, where the manufacturer can pick the duration and nothing else. Disputes should be settled in court or by a neutral board of experts.

I have not found it to be the case, one of my displays lasted 7 years and still works, the other gave out in 3, both had 1 year warfanty. Dell and asus respectively.

Think of it the other way round. Long warranties are indicative of a durable, long lasting product. A short warranty, however, does not necessarily indicate a crap product.

Of course this is not a perfect measure, but I do think that a correlation would exist here.

Or, they may also be indicative of the company making its money elsewhere, and thus willing to eat the cost of regular warranty replacement just to keep you tied to their hardware, so that they can exploit you elsewhere.