Houses? Look at all the nice victorian houses built 100-150 years ago, for ‘average’ professionals. Solid wood doors everywhere, nicely finished walls , brass fixtures etc…
Compare this with the garbage we have in today’s McMansions … and weep.
Because you can buy an newbuilt apartment in London for a million dollars and it will be absolute shit. Recently builders forgot to build balconies, forgot to lay down internet cable for a block of flats, and built and entire block wrong way round. They are worse than an average javascript app!
Fridges come to mind, but it depends on what you mean by “quality”. I had a 8 year old fridge, and attempted to replace a shelf bracket that broke because the plastic was flimsy - no parts available after 5 years. By 9 years old the brackets that held the large fan in the back of it in place had crumbled to dust.
Meanwhile fridges from the 1960s are still humming along fine.
The crumbly new fridge is more energy efficient by a long shot than that workhorse hold fridge - so it does depend on what you consider quality, but longevity and repairability are definitely major factors in what I consider quality.
> Meanwhile fridges from the 1960s are still humming along fine.
Fridges that you see from the 1960s are still humming along fine. All the ones that broke decades ago get none of your attention. This is survivorship bias. Reliability of products like fridges has gone up immensely over the last 50 years.
I'm not sure about the 1960s, but generally all appliances have gotten quite a bit cheaper and had less durability and repairability since the eighties. There was a step change in the late nineties both in price and quality when production moved to China.
That might be true. But I don't think there will be ANY of the model of fridge I had running at 20 years old. Survivorship bias can't account for plastic that crumbles from being heat-cycled.
If I had a 3D printer, yes. But like most people, I don't have a 3d printer. $200-$1200 + a few days of learning trial and error is starting to get into the price range of just buying a new fridge.
Or you can hack it with Sugru: <https://sugru.com/what-is-sugru>. Not necessarily the best for aesthetics, unless you're a clay sculptor hobbyist or something, but it sticks tight to almost everything. Though as per the website: "Sugru does not bond to oily plastics like polypropylene, polyethylene or Teflon."
I've used it for all kinds of things. I tend to reinforce it if it's load-bearing (eg I made a bracket for my router under my desk, but molded the Sugru around a screw that I put in the desk). Each pack is very small, so it'll only be enough for corners or wrapping around wires very close to the end or whatever.
I’ve not had good luck with sugru. I’ve used it to repair a couple cables that started fraying near one end… the weird lump of sugru covered where i put it, but didn’t stop the fraying - bought me maybe another couple months of use.
Its weird that noone really deeply analyzes this. Munro started a teardown, but it ended somewhat abruptly and with only fairly surface level analysis, IMO.
I've been saying the same for a while, but there are definitely some strange things going on with product quality and replacement cost.
Eg, my microwave has a vent cover on the top that tends to crack and fall off after less than 3 years. They company wants >$90 for the lightweight, simple plastic part.
I have a fridge with a long lasting LED light. The proprietary board that its mounted to failed after less than 4 years.
We've somehow managed to replace short lasting components (filament bulbs) with components that last longer (led) but fail in more costly ways. Somehow the manufacturer gets away with blaming laws (incandescent bulbs were banned, we say!) while also profiting from building things too cheaply.
Can you actually list items that, on a price-adjusted level, are lower quality? Nearly everything is of higher quality and cheaper than it ever was.