Exactly. By most evidence, new machines should be lasting longer, all told. That so many people feel that is not happening seems to be interesting, in itself. Could be correct, I don't know.

And same in experience. At large, the doors that are getting opened and closed repeatedly by my kids are far far more likely to get broken than any others. Which leads to door seals that are not up to where they should be. And will not surprise me that we run those compressors harder than we would otherwise. Which will lead to those failing.

A friend worked for GE Research a several years ago. They were focused on reliability engineering. Meaning have predictive reliability on a bell curve to avoid failure during the 3 year warranty period, and to have a rate of failure during the extended warranty period to preserve the margins.

The impact of surprises… bad components, variances in operational conditions, etc can have a big impact. Also, the quality improvements that emissions controls had on cars didn’t happen for white goods. Cars were hit with emissions AND safety standards, which raised prices.

For appliances instead they incentivize things like all electronic controls (more prone to failure with rough service or high heat), and undersizing components. Old appliances were all mechanical and easily fixed, the electronics tend to turnover quickly and are difficult or impossible to get from a 3rd party.