Some things were better in the good old days

Comments

• kandoh@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  When my parents were kids, their home-ec class consisted of repeatedly hammering into their heads to cook meat at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or eose they’d get sick because the refrigeration was so unreliable

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  • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca ⁨33⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    That’s why my grandmother made such overdone roasts. I just thought I didn’t like roast beef much until I tried it medium rare instead of charred to a grey cube of leather.

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  • Rooster326@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    Where do you live that your parents are old enough to have unreliable ice boxes, but modern enough that both the man and women took home-ec?

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    • kandoh@reddthat.com ⁨50⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Canada

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• Nomorereddit@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Golden age revisionism is a comforting illusion that edits out the past’s flaws and distorts reality; it becomes dangerous when it shapes decisions based on nostalgia instead of truth.

  Those 1980s fridges for ex lacked ice makers and water filtration, used far more energy due to inefficient design, struggled with consistent temperatures that spoiled food faster, often required manual defrosting, and had poor seals that let cold air escape and raised costs.

  Golden age revisionism is the chief tactic of blow hard Republicans. Ever hear, make America great…again?

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  • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today ⁨43⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    You forgot about the locking doors so children had to be taught not to play inside of them if you saw one outside because you would suffocate and die.

    I remember watching an episode of Punky Brewster on TV about that.

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  • MissingGhost@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’ve never used a fridge that has an ice maker or water filtration. They are still premium options, or some people just don’t have any use for the features.

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    • PartyAt15thAndSummit@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Must be an American thing.

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  • MehBlah@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Except in this case its true. They have over stuffed modern appliances with useless features that shorten the life of the appliance. As to how they didn’t comes with ice makers. Of course they did. Most had a place where it could be added if you didn’t buy one with that feature. Water filtration wasn’t there true enough but no one thought of that then. Only older early 70’s fridges came without defrosting. As to the poor seals you get that from damage which applies to modern fridges as well. The fridge I have is from the early 90’s and it rocks. No problems with ice buildup No leaks and a consistent temperature. I dread having to buy some modern POS built to fail so you can get sold another one.

    Not everything is a republican plot to get you to purchase a forty year appliance.

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    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I have a mini fridge purchased new early 00s that I recently left unplugged for a day or so to melt the ice buildup on the freezer.

      Not that I’m happy with the overall state of appliances these days, but the reality is that technology is still improving, but some of those “improvements” aren’t for the buyer’s benefit (while others are). And there’s plenty of plain old cheap shit in a nice brushed stainless steel package to make it look high end.

      Like induction stoves and convection ovens weren’t really a thing in the 80s but imo are way better than what came before. But, despite being a convection oven, the cheap one the developers picked for my place is the worst oven I’ve ever used. And I’m hesitant to “upgrade” because, despite knowing they can be better, there’s a good chance whatever I end up getting won’t, or make will be at first but will start degrading rapidly from day 1 such that it’s shitty by the time the warranty runs out.

      That is the big difference between modern and older appliances. The older ones were made in good faith, the newer ones are a gamble because we have an economic system based on greed and it has progressed a lot since the 50s.

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  • P1k1e@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I mean you ain’t wrong or nothing, but I’m pretty sure they’re mostly focusing on enshitification.

    I’m 40 and the only memory I have of an old appliance that stands out was the time I took soaked clothes and put them in the dryer and ran it. I broke that sum-bitch gud

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• WanderWisley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  The fridge in my kitchen is old enough to be sent off to war and die for Israel.

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• cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Survivorship bias. All the ones that broke aren’t around anymore.

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  • Vocalize8711@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The ‘modern’ stuff breaks down faster due to 1) the fact that engineering has improved so much that obfuscation can be planned without compromising functionality. 2) ‘Modern’ stuff tries to cram in multiple features which are not necessary for its basic function. For this I blame the lack of diligence from buyers. The increased complexity means more parts that can fail. I bring up the example of SystemD (no offense to anyone, user’s choice).

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  • FelixCress@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Not necessarily. Less parts, less complex mechanisms = lower probability of something breaking down.

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    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Also there was a time where companies actually cared. They would send the engineers for the next model out with service techs servicing current models to help them find the common failure points and help make things more servicable.

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  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They were way more repairable though. We had a gas dryer that lasted 40 years and was only replaced because we moved somewhere without gas.

    It was basically a big egg timer with an electric mover and a gas burner. You could fix anything on it with a crescent wrench, screwdriver, and off-the-shelf components from the hardware store for about 9 bucks.

    The replacement dryer has had to have $1000+ circuit boards replaced more than once.

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    • dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The WTF here is not necessarily that some component on the circuit board failed, but that the manufacturer charges $400-$1000 for it with a straight face and gets away with it when they undoubtedly have that board made in China for about $4 per unit.

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  • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Also imprecise engineering tended to overbuild things.

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    • Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Thanks to better manufacturing techniques, engineering analysis, and the fine humans in management, we have gotten really good at barely building a machine that lasts just long enough to be out of warranty.

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    • 5715@feddit.org ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Increase in precision (materially and economically) then leads to rebound effects; higher precision should lead to lower material flows, but the opposite happens because the technological progress broadens the market when possible

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  • realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But there’s WAY more surviving devices from 1960 in 2020 than there will be from 2020 in 2080.

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  • sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah also forever means from when you were 8 until you moved out, only 12 years… Appliances can still do that today.

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    • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Look at Mr Moneybags over here, with enough money to move out

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    • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Samsung has left the chat…

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  • Lemming6969@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Which is fine. You’d think they’d just refine those further. Today we’d have ultra efficient tanks that take little water, little energy, and never break.

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    • cattywampas@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Everything breaks eventually. Entropy always increases.

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  • hesh@quokk.au ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Right but none of the ones made these days last. Some > none.

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  • IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m assuming CFC might have been a better coolant, that’s why those old fridges are so good

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• motogo@feddit.dk ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Right. You mean when they occasionally burst into flames and burned the friggin house down instead of smoothly just disengaging because the smartness also secures from malfunction?

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  • MissingGhost@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This isn’t correct. The invention of fuses and breakers predates the invention of wifi by a lot.

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    • Rooster326@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      The invention of wifi predates the IOT, and by a lot.

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  • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Funny because when I think of things bursting into flames randomly, the things that come to mind are samsung phones and teslas, not old appliances.

    Is that smooth disengaging when the smart appliance is about to burst into flames even a thing? And if so is it really just limited to modern appliances and not a thing appliance makers have been doing to resolve flaws all along?

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  • DrDickHandler@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Oh shit, big furniture in the house shilling for their crap.

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    • Rooster326@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      What do you think they’re doing with their allocated 3.6 GB per day?

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• chris@l.roofo.cc ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  My modern fridge automatically defrost itself and has an incredibly silent compressor. More than once I forgot to close the freezer door correctly and still it’s not covered in ice on the inside. It uses so little energy into its day to day operation.

  My modern drier has a heat pump built in to effeciently heat the air. It also detects how long it needs to run to get my clothes to the perfect dryness.

  My modern dishwasher has a heat exchanger system to retain the heat from the dirty water to warm the fresh water. This saves energy.

  Modern devices maybe have their problems. Sometimes with cheaper components or worse repairability. But don’t pretend like the only innovation we had over the years was to add wifi to your appliances.

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  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The refrigerator in the photo is auto defrosting, I’m almost certain.

    The energy saving parts also come with cost cutting, which is how I interpret the post. My 2001 era dishwasher was recently replaced with a 2024 model (in 2025) and the old one weighs nearly twice as much. They’re comparable in the product line of their time from the same manufacturer; the new one cost more. But it’s not just mass. It’s insulation, it’s metal parts replaced with plastic, nylon-glass fibre parts replaced with ABS and it’s thinning down components to last just until the warranty expires.

    It doesn’t have a heat exchanger though. What kind of dishwasher?

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    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      I bought a french door fridge specifically because the design makes it so that my dog can’t get the door open. I figure the energy leaking from the door design is far less than the energy and food loss of the door being left open all day while I’m at work because my adorable idiot wanted a snack.

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  • winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My new from store 2 year old fridge had to be replaced recently. Repair estimate was $1k which is more than the cost of the entire fridge itself

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    • chris@l.roofo.cc ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That sucks but how does that relate to my comment?

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• Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You mean those things that are 10x less efficient?

  I too can build a wooden box that will last you multiple lifetimes. But it won’t keep your food cold.

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  • boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It’s not because of efficiency that things last less time now.

    Crucial parts that used to be made of metal are now plastic to save money, etc.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s not because of efficiency that things last less time now.

      well, yeah, a lot of over-engineering makes things fickle and it increases the number of potential failure points. simpler technology is simply more durable. My grandma had equipment they used for farming when she was a kid (that was 70 years ago). Stuff like buckets, pushcarts, manual hoes (those you use for farming, think minecraft hoes). They still work flawlessly.

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    • tabris@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      There is also a survivorship bias at play here. Old appliances that are still in use are exactly the appliances where all the constituent parts were top quality, that have had the right maintenance, that have, against all odds, survived. Plenty of those old appliances didn’t survive.

      Yes capitalism has done what it does to increase profitability and desirability, but there are still got quality appliances that last. They just usually don’t have the most features, or a luxury look. When I got a new fridge-freezer last year, the guy who installed it told me that he rarely saw that model returned or repaired, and when it was repaired, it was pretty cheap. He also said he’d never buy a smart fridge, so I felt vindicated in buying the simplest device on the market.

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    • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If you think the concept of saving money on shoddy parts was invented this decade you just never paid attention. “Metal” isn’t some kind of magic substance that just works forever, cheap cast bullshit iron can shatter quicker than you can say “structural integrity”.
      The reason everyone is glazing up this old appliances is because of survivorship bias, everyone sees one on the million devices and doesn’t see millions of old bullshits that disintegrated into nothingness over years.

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• benderbeerman@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  ^as said by somebody who never had to replace the motor on their washer, or the burned on their range, or the belt on their dryer, or the elements in the water heater…

  The reason they always worked forever was because your dad bought replacement parts from the appliance repair store and didn’t complain to you about it.

  This is literally one of the top 3 good things about YouTube

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  • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    have repaired my oven twice (15 years) and dryer three times (16 years). it’s amazing how many appliances can be repaired if people just take the time to dig into it.

    unless it has a screen. fuck everything about that shit.

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    • Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      We tried to repair our washing machine but the fuckers designed it in such a way that the drum and bearing or something of the sort are inseparabale and thus you cannot just replace rhe bearing which was fucked in ours but you have to get the whole assembly. So instead of a probably 50-100€ worth of parts the repair would be in the 200-300€ range and at that point it made no sense spending that much money on a 6 year old machine.

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• MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Admitely, the timer of my,microeave isn’t reliable abymore, since it’s spring got weak. But would be easy to fix, if get to it sometime.

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• Crackhappy@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Yep. Have four of those type. Occasionally, once a decade or so, I have to maintain em. But otherwise I milk em. Like cows.

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  • Crackhappy@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If you are thinking of how you milk a washing machine, Imma ask if you been thinkin hard enough

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• riskable@programming.dev ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Ah, the good old days when your “dumb” refrigerator would kill children playing hide and seek because the latch wouldn’t open from the inside. When it was lined with asbestos because that’s literally the best insulation that exists excepting aerogel. When the mercury thermostat would fail—leaking mercury on to your food (and aerosolizing some which would be breathed in as soon as you opened it)—and it would freeze everything inside, complete with an interior wall of snow that could take days to defrost. It used old school freon, destroying the ozone layer. Or before then, fun highly toxic gasses like methyl chloride!

  Those were the days! When a breeze through the house on a day with wonderful weather could blow out the pilot light in your oven, slowly leaking gas into your house, exploding and destroying the entire home late at night while everyone is asleep.

  Then the wonders of electricity came along to produce ovens that were hooked up to 220V lines without a grounding wire, and wiring that would slowly fail over time, eventually making contact with the metal frame, electrocuting anyone who touched the device—or anyone that touched the person touching it.

  Ovens were built different “back in the day”! They didn’t have anti-tip brackets, resulting in loads of children sitting on the oven door, spilling boiling liquids down upon them.

  The best were those old washing machines, though! You could lift up the lid and look inside to see your laundry spinning at high speeds! Just don’t reach your hand in, or you could find out what the term “degloving” means.

  Ah yes, the good old days of appliances.

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  • end_stage_ligma@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    if you design an appliance that kills someone you should be sentenced to death by the same appliance

    • Hammurabi

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  • Greg@lemmy.ca ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But they had more fun colours for appliances

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  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Well, you obviously speak for the USA. And despite things like thermal cutoffs or automatic shutoffs, things were pretty safe here (Germany) in the 60-90s.

    Also, there is a difference between general advancements in safety regulations and putting tons of unnecessary features in a device that will break soon. No Tesla of today will probably still be going in 50yrs or after 500.000km.

    The higher the complexity, the higher the chance of failure.

    And on top of it, there was no “planned obsolescence” or even suicides switches built in. Bad for capitalism, good for people.

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  • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    MAGA!

    /s

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• nautilus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  old good, new bad

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• MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They weren’t smart enough to maximize shareholder value :P

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• eli@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You can buy appliances without smart features still?

  Best Buy has dozens, if not hundreds, of fridges without smart features. I can buy a 18cu top freezer fridge for $450 right now.

  That same type of fridge back in the 1970s cost $300-$400. Adjusted for inflation that’s $2,000

  So I don’t get this post. You can buy cheap fridges still and it’ll probably last a long time if you take care of it. Read repair reports or Google random problems for a fridge you’re looking to buy to see the most common failure points and see what the repair cost would be to factor in future costs.

  Stupid post.

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• redwattlebird@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Well, they worked forever because you could get them fixed. They will break down but you could repair them yourself or get it repaired. Unsure about whitegoods, but small appliances these days are expected to end up in landfill; no exposed screws and everything is glued in.

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    no exposed screws and everything is glued in.

    Ironically, everything being glued in is also the reason why they last much longer before you have to repair them for the first time. Screws are potential failure points where stuff can get loose. When stuff is glued together with modern glues, it’s basically shut like welded. It doesn’t get loose and lasts much longer.

    Especially for stuff like smartphones that’s relevant. When stuff is screwed together, it’s typically not air-tight, and water can get in and ruin stuff. Glued together, it’s watertight basically completely.

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• sploder@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I got tired of my he front loading washer leaking and fucking up, I went through 3 of them. Got them all serviced and they just never worked great to begin with. Said fuck it and got a speed queen top loader with knobs and one button. Fuckin love it. Bonus points too, I put a magnet on the side of it from my parents old laundry business with our name and old phone number. My dad only had speed queens in the business. Now I know why. Shit just works.

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• mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I wish I could find another chest freezer like the one we had in texas. Thing was 400lbs of insulation with a compressor that withstood 25+ years of texas garage heat. Never failed once.

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• ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Age of an appliance is not an indicator of its quality. Quality is an indicator of quality, back then, there was as mush trash quality products as today, only difference is, they did not live long enough to be remembered.

  Also, electrical appliances were way, WAY more expensive than today.

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• tired_n_bored@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I wish companies understood that no, I don’t need my washing machine to be connected to WiFi

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  • Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They didn’t add that feature for you.

    They added it so they can “keep track” and “improve the customer experience”.

    Which basically boils down to tracking your usage and selling it to the highest bidder.

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  • Iksbat@feddit.org ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah, but they want their washing machine in your home to have wifi.

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• HelloDingo@slrpnk.net ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Just got rid of my fancy younger washer after spending $240 on repairs for the second time only to have it fail again.

  Went and pulled my ancient Whirlpool direct drive out of storage, spent $15 on the replacement clutch and coupler it needed and threw them in there.

  Thing turns 30 years old this year and it’s going like a champ.

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  • chris@l.roofo.cc ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And probably uses 3 times the energy. My drier has a heatpump built in. I can’t imagen the old one has that. Things get more complex net just to fuck with you but because they innovate.

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• OwOarchist@pawb.social ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Adjusted for inflation, they also cost ~$3,000 each.

  If you want a simple, basic, but very reliable appliance and are willing to pay $3,000 for it, there are brands existing today that will sell one to you.

  (Or, you know, just buy some old used ones and make minor repairs if necessary.)

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• FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  We also aren’t paying the same prices. The fridge from the 60s in your grandmas basement? She probably had a 10 year payment plan for it.

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• expatriado@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  i have a new dumb washer and dryer bought this year, and my previous dumb set bought in 2011 still working, the ex took them 😂

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• 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Smart features aren’t what make appliances break. Give me a fridge and a washer with Matter/Thread for local sensor readings from HomeAssistant and a compressor/motor that doesn’t die after 3 years and I’ll give you the $3k for a fridge that you demand

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• Iampossiblyatwork@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Speed queen. We just got ours and I’m never getting rid of them.

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• cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Planned obsolescence. They want you to keep buying overpriced shit as well as to collect all your data. Win win for them.

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• Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The family has a fridge that’s been going strong since before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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• StellarSt0rm@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Useless em dash -_-

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• captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No I don’t. And I’ve never had a smart appliance either

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