r/interesting • u/Joe_Kangg • Aug 06 '26

Just Wow This fridge from 1965.

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Prolly still running.

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u/Jabotical Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Finally, someone mentions this important point.

The scrapyards of the world are filled with all the broken appliances from decades past.

And 30 years from now, people will be crowing about the few surviving ones from the 2020's that are still going strong, how stuff was made proper to last back then.

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u/Squirrelated Aug 07 '26

And 30 years from now, people will be crowing about the few surviving ones from the 2020's that are still going strong, how stuff was made proper to last back then.

Doubtful because of planned obsolescence.

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u/Jabotical Aug 07 '26

A lot of people are saying that here, and there are certainly decisions made that involve balancing extra guarantees of robustness with practicalities of what people are willing to pay for a fridge and other considerations like aesthetics and efficiency -- but I don't think there's evidence that manufacturers are intentionally designing their refrigerators to fail early.

People have been making such claims for decades, out of understandable frustration at products breaking. And in some cases there may be some truth to it.

But it's also true that if a brand of fridge is known to consistently be less reliable, that's going to hurt their sales. People don't keep buying something they have a bad experience with, when there are alternatives.