I agree that people value different things but I wouldn’t say information about brand reliability is widely available. I have a consumer reports membership for checking that kind of thing simply because all of the info out there is mostly blogspam and fake review sites.

Information from reputable sources on large appliance purchases is incredibly hard to find since most people don’t buy appliances often, so even consumers used to doing online research will be hard pressed to know which sites to trust. I know that I wouldn’t have a clue.

If there is a place besides consumer reports, which is a paid service, where you can. Heck these things I would be very interested in hearing about it.

how would a site like this even get paid? from appliance company commissions?

> Information about brand reliability is widely available.

Information that you can trust, however, is harder to find.

> Information about brand reliability is widely available

I too see this information everywhere but I have no idea what to trust on this anymore and what information is paid for and gamed by the companies themselves. Brand reputation is its own business these days with its own products and markets.

exactly. everything is corruptible anymore.

>Brand reputation is its own business these days with its own products and markets.

I'm halfway convinced that selling a brand is just sort of illegitimate - a brand is just a reputation (ie. built-up trust), and selling out your reputation for money on your way out the door is cleanly, obviously immoral.

I'm sure there are arguments for it (like "well surely my son can inherit the family business" and "well surely I can sell the business to someone who I trust to maintain reputation"), but overall those arguments don't change what actually happens: the business is sold to someone who wants the profit from abusing the trust that's been built up.

Shopping for appliances recently, I found that ALL available brands are pretty shit as far as reliability goes. It's basically a gamble. I've learned to avoid Samsung though because the circuit boards in them cannot be had for any amount of money and so the appliances are essentially not repairable.

"When you buy a new refrigerator, you probably expect it to last about a decade. Consumer Reports’ member surveys back up that claim, with 10 years being the median expected life span for a newly purchased refrigerator. But it turns out the odds of having a problem-free experience over that decade are not in your favor. Based on our most recent survey results, we estimate that 31 percent of all refrigerators will require repairs by the end of the fifth year of ownership, making them one of the least reliable products we analyze in our surveys."

Modern fridges are pretty terrible as an entire category, at all price points.

> Information about brand reliability is widely available.

Where? If you Google for it, you're only ging to find SEO'd info-free sites. If I take a look at what people tall about in only forums, they haven't a clue either.

I just see no evidence of this.