Far from it. As a technician there are way more service calls on newer appliances and much shorter life cycles for them. Certain fairly universal parts are clearly being made at a lower standard now as well. For instance, a very common repair is gas oven ignitors. Many different manufacturers use the exact same style of hot surface ignitors. The ones i see these days burn out in ½ the time or less than they ever used to, even though the design of them hasn't changed one iota.

There is a clear and obvious lack of quality in today's appliances. An old Maytag washer could last 25 years with minimal repairs/maintenance. A newer Maytag doing the same work over the same duration would be lucky to get ½ that mileage before it got shit-canned, though it's likely it would happen even sooner than that. The comparison in design is night and day. The old one was simple, field-tested design made for reliability and relative ease of service...the other is a hodgepodge of electronics and sensors connected by Angel-Hair spaghetti-thin wiring that will have something break in less than 10 years with regular use, and likely less than 5 with heavy use. Sure, a few of the old Maytag's didn't go the distance and a few of the newer ones managed to squeak out more mileage than expected...but anyone with real experience with those 2 machines would take the old one over the new one every single time. It's almost unfair to compare an old Maytag washer to a new one because the most important metric is reliability and there's simply no comparison there.

Do people genuinely think modern tech is that durable/reliable?

Jokes on you, I bought my fridge from LG.

Unrelated, but does anyone know how to stop my A/C from beeping out morse code adverts for McAfee?

unzips

what?

I know someone with a 50s fridge, the inside is a giant lazy susan, very cool and unique. But yeah we did some back-of-envelope math, and it uses about 20x as much energy as my modern fridge.

The worse energy efficiency is annoying, but the added cost of electricity is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of buying a new fridge every 5 years.

The uneven airflow/cooling is manageable, since it's usually fairly minor.

As for the CFCs, that only matters if it leaks, and the fridge wouldn't have lasted 50 years if it leaked.

I have a modern fridge which is about 15 years old now. Simple digital control, multi zone temperature control, no radiator on the back, stainless steel. It was very expensive at the time but it keeps going and hasn't required any maintenance other than occasionally cleaning the inside.

The fridge I had before this one was a cheap Beko and lasted less than two years.

Well don't tell us which brands or anything.

Five years? Wow, amazing achievement. I only know of a single fridge failing and that was when my dad, in his wisdom, sped up the defrost process with a screwdriver.

I've owned my current fridge, second hand, for 6 years, and judging by the age of the other appliances it's likely about 20 years old. The problem here is that the things which lead to appliances being bought (price, ratings) don't give you a 20 year view on it. You need 20 year warranties or consumer advocacy groups doing longitudinal studies!

Also, expensice appliances still last. It's just that back in the day expensive was the only option.

It was also that old appliances were expensive at the time.

If you buy a fridge for 3000€ today, it will also last you a very long time.

but then people will think you are poor.

I have an airfryer with two knobs: time and temperature. It's all I need and I love it for that. The best feature: no beeps, only satisfying mechanical timer noises and a simple "pling" when it's done

That's what i tell my customers. The best advice is to keep it simple. Even then there's still loads of awful choices out there

Are there any temp controls for the drawer? Sometimes there are sliders/adjustments for a specific drawer/zone. Otherwise I'd try turning the main control down a bit--might not be a noticeable difference for most of the refrig, while keeping the veggies from freezing.

Nah. My dad has like 50y old russian fridge bought by the grandpa in the Soviet union times and it still works.

Mmmm, day-old liquid ice cream... 🤤

It's planned obsolesence. They make more money by marketing high tech/luxury stuff and having it break on purpose in a defined amount of time.

I got some Carhartt "worker" jeans, advertized as nice jeans for manual laborers.

I work from home in my home office. The crotch tore in less than 6 months of hard... sitting.

Expensive shit they want you to buy over and over again because they think you're an idiot. I learned to sew, learned to darn my nice wool socks that tore predictably in 6 months, repair and maintain my motorcycle, repair my plumbing, because fuck all this enshittification.

My new MO is to buy your shit once, and either i will say your brand is great or keep wearing my torn/repaired carhartt jeans and keep reminding people never to buy them unless they want to learn how to sew. Fuck these greedy pieces of shit.

our parents but a new LG one recently, and there has been complaints in the reviews that it keeps defrosting or its not cold enough or it dies down the line.

Buy the right machines. Buy for repairability.