Without knowing anything particular about Miele, all this anecdote suggests is that they were great thirty years ago. They could well have enshittified between now and then.

I'm at the point where I don't trust any brands at all anymore. The next time I need to make a major appliance purchase I'll buy a subscription to Consumer Reports and blindly follow their recommendation - I still trust them.

Apparently Miele has started to have quality issues. But they still might be a good bet, if only for the fact that they are (probably?) the last family run business in the market.

I did not know that! Thanks. Indeed, "family run", depending on where they are in the internal-to-the-family management-transition cycle, is more encouraging to me than "publicly held". ("Private equity" is always and everywhere a huge red flag.)

It's depressing to me that we have to think about those things. I mean, "buyer beware" has always been the case, but it seems like we have to be more wary (or more wary of more factors) than we did a decade or two ago. Or maybe I'm just getting older. I dunno.

It might be just the normal process of capitalism in which you see take-over after take-over leading to ever bigger companies?

"Capitalism" is very much in the eye of the beholder, and different regulatory models create market economies with different incentives. What you're talking about is "normal" in certain places.

I didn't mean that, though, and I don't think it's what the other people in this thread did, either. I was thinking of the practice whereby private equity funds purchase companies and exploit the "brand equity" they've built up over the long term, whilst deliberately enshittifying them, in order to make a short-term profit for the new owners. That's been normalized, in some places, but I wish it were not, and would prefer that financial markets be regulated in ways that make it un-profitable.

But isnt that the crux of the matter? You buy what consumer reports say, and the reviewers have no way of knowing if it will break down in 3 years. No one rates their gadget after three years so we have a massive blind spot where the best thing is still word of mouth.

My parents bought an Miele washing machine, rock solid even after pushing ten years.

Yeah, totally. That's where branding used to be a valuable signal, under the assumption that a company wouldn't deliberately choose to destroy their long-term value. I don't believe that anymore, so I'll place what remains of my trust in reviewers I know are independent (God help us all if it turns out CR is taking kick-backs or something) and figure know more about, say, washing machines than I do.

Miele now has cheaper models so you may be right to be cautious.

Personally I have had issues with Bosch and don't trust them anymore.

The result is that now either I car about specific look, some specific features, etc and pay a bit more for them, or I just go for cheapest.