- cross-posted to:
- tech@programming.dev
- Technology@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- tech@programming.dev
- Technology@programming.dev
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37646129
Source: Reddit post— Private front-end.
Samsung Statement to Android Authority:
Samsung is committed to innovation and enhancing every day value for our home appliance customers. As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen that value, we are conducting a pilot program to offer promotions and curated advertisements on certain Samsung Family Hub refrigerator models in the U.S. market.
As a part of this pilot program, Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. will receive an over-the-network (OTN) software update with Terms of Service (T&C) and Privacy Notice (PN). Advertising will appear on certain Family Hub refrigerator Cover Screens. The Cover Screen appears when a Family Hub screen is idle. Ad design format may change depending on Family Hub personalization options for the Cover Screen, and advertising will not appear when Cover Screen displays Art Mode or picture albums.
Advertisements can be dismissed on the Cover Screens where ads are shown, meaning that specific ads will not appear again during the campaign period.
Meanwhile, my parents have some old random branded washer and dryer from the 90s that still works today. A few years ago they replaced a part, something to do with draining. Cost them all of 40 bucks and a couple hours.
They truly, and intentionally, don’t make em like they used to.
That’s just survivorship bias. You can absolutely still get reliable appliances that are cheap to repair. I’ve had to replace a few parts on my Maytag dryer (because my wife abuses it), and I only paid like $30 for a coil assembly and replacement sensors. My washer is still going strong after 10 years.
They’re often expensive, but so were reliable appliances in the good ol days. The main problem is that people want relatively cheap stuff, and that cheap stuff is made with cheap parts that don’t last as long.
Appliances used to be major purchases, and the modern consumer wants a cheap new appliance now instead of saving up for months.
That’s a problem, but these days the new problem is that even the expensive stuff is often still cheaply made and just dressed up with “premium” features and styling (that’s also cheap to implement, but artificially withheld from the lower-end models to punish people who pay less).
If you look hard enough, yes, but the other issue is that the shit I described above sells for the same price as quality but costs less to make, which means the glorified trash is more profitable. Even when companies care about their long-term reputation and don’t succumb to that pressure to enshittify, they’ll be out-competed by those that do and eventually go bankrupt or get bought out by private equity and forced to do it anyway. The market is littered with examples of companies that had great reputations for “buy it for life” products, until all of a sudden they didn’t anymore.
I have my great aunt’s Sunbeam waffle iron from the 50s and it still works great. Appliances used to be made to be repairable, and there were appliance repair shops all over the place
Survivorship bias, sort of. Some things were definitely made to be repairable, but a lot of stuff was made that way because it was the best option. We didn’t have cheap plastic manufacturing processes and one little logic board controlling everything, it was solid mechanical timer components.
And if they broke beyond reasonable repair, they were thrown out.
Planned obsolescence is very real and one of the reasons we can’t have nice things.
Yes, but the other poster is correct with the other half of the argument. Right now at this very moment in history, appliances are the cheapest adjusted for the median household income than they’ve ever been. Why? Because that’s what consumers demand. The manufacturer knows full well they can’t make a durable machine at the price point consumers are willing to pay, but it’s okay for them because they also know consumers will happily buy another one in 5 years.
Don’t like it? Buy a Speed Queen washer or dryer.
“But there’s no way in hell I’m paying $1449 just for a damn for a washing machine!!!”
Yeah, my point exactly. And theirs, too.
Guess what, my dudes and dudettes: That oldschool classic Kenmore or whatever-the-hell washer your parents had when you were growing up that’s still trucking? Adjusted for inflation, that’s about what it would cost in today’s money, give or take a couple of percent.
(I sourced that Sears pricing by stealing it from here, by the way. The management apologizes deeply in advance if you wind up pissing away your entire afternoon going all nostalgic over the contents of that link.)
That’s just not true. It’s not so much planned obsolescence as it’s companies making appliances to fit a price point and using lower quality parts to do so.
You can absolutely still buy appliances that will last decades, but they are expensive. 50 years ago you could absolutely buy a cheap washer that would need to be fixed frequently.
Are you suggesting that planned obsolescence doesn’t exist?
Never mind, you didn’t suggest, you straight up said it.
How about this (not OP): most things people attribute to planned obsolescence are not planned obsolescence.
I am suggesting that companies specifically designing products to fail at a specific point isn’t as prolific as people like to claim.
Cheaper parts have lower MTTF specs, so by default a cheap product will fail sooner than an expensive one.
That’s not to say that expensive appliances can’t use cheap parts, but I’d argue the main goal is to increase profit margins rather than to increase turnover.
Yeah. It’s not “how evilly can we design this to only last three years”, it’s “how cheaply can we design this to last only at least as long as it has to”. There’s a difference between making it fail and just not caring if it continues.
Like how the mars rovers had a design lifetime of like three years or whatever, and anything past that was just a bonus. NASA didn’t design them to fail after three years, they designed them to last at least three years at minimum.
Yes sir