Servicing. High-end appliances seem to last just fine.
I turned off the range with my Cast Iron on it, the cast iron cooled slower than the glass and the glass cracked. Poor design not built for cast iron.
This happened twice.
That meant I got to spend good time chatting with the service tech. He said he’s the last of a dying profession for a few reasons:
1. Nothing is fixed anymore except really old stuff. The things are simply replaced because the cost of fixing is higher than just replacing it with new. This means we’re literally throwing what are effectively new products into the landfill months after being installed. Even the old stuff, they are pushed into suggesting new build because the supply chain for old parts is small and there’s no money in it anymore.
2. There’s no career path for technicians because of 1 so where he used to be training apprentices they are going for other trades.
Paying a human to do anything is so expensive. And it makes sense when you break it down by what their costs probably are.
I don't think anyone is even making a lot of money there is so much overhead costs.
In this case the thing that changed was we went from fixing with a few parts, to wholesale replacing.
Appliance manufacturers survived most of the 20th century making reliable products for a smaller global population. On the other hand, it's hard to have never ending quarterly profit growth without planned obsolescence to create extra demand that normally wouldn't exist.
A worthy successor to "Think of the children!"
“How to provide promised services and goods to a larger and larger non working population from a smaller and smaller working population” and/or the politics of managing this once the working population realizes they are not going to get the same, so why should they bother with providing it?
Which is why the returns ("financialization") are so important, higher returns means you get a higher portion of the goods and services. But since returns are just money, it does not mean the sum total of goods and services increases, just the proportion that you get is proportional to the return you get relative to others. And you can replace "you" in this statement with "x tribe" whether it be generational, political, racial, etc.
Case in point: Greyhound. Asset stripping (real estate). Slow death of service.
Find a lever for extracting cash. Lean on it. Pry out cash til there's only a husk. Rinse. Repeat.
"Private equity" - bah humbug.
Most people don’t, or don’t know how to make their appliances last much longer.
For example the minimum of maintenance for water tanks, or changing air filters more often when your home has AC.
Don't people bring their appliances with them when moving?
When you make an offer to buy a home, there will be a section that lists the furnishings/appliances/things-not-nailed-down that are included in your offer. Your real estate agent is going to check the boxes for appliances without even asking you. You could tell the agent not to do that, and the seller could say no. But that would be unusual.
A new refrigerator is roughly $1k for a cheap one, don't tell me someone is going to charge more than that to move a single item. Hell, I've paid for an entire move for less than that.
People will rationalize all sorts of poor decisions.
I live in the US and I don't know of anyone who chose not to bring their appliances with them.
It’s not uncommon to leave them depending on where you’re going. A new home might already have new appliances included.
Yet reality is more like - completely new markets are opening, new rich people look for quality good brands, or father happy with his knife for 20 years will buy another one for his son. Or Miele, brand completely built on just its perceived reliability. They cost 2-3x more compared to even Bosch/Siemens, without any unique features apart from this.
The problem is, as almost everywhere in corporations - C-suite bonus incentives. Quick milking without care about long term strategies or brand name is the name of the game.
Personally, I really like the Filson brand from the United States, but they also suffered from their core products being too-good, ownership changes eventually to a private equity fund, and ended up being driven into a lifestyle brand with a variety of otherwise unrelated product lines and collaborations (e.g. t-shirts) which often get manufactured overseas with lesser quality of materials and construction.
Another example might include other American "heritage" brands of footwear, such as Red Wings and Wolverine; they still make and sell their heritage products at a premium price but have been driven to use their brand to sell other, lesser quality goods with better profit margins.
The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going to sell another one unless it's to another (new) customer or purchased as a gift for someone by their existing loyal customer. So then they start entering into new product areas and eventually end up compromising quality.
As other have mentioned, this is becoming particularly annoying with home appliances and cars. "They don't make them like they used to" are true words.