angelus512 wrote:
Dont want to sound like an old man (i'm actually 29) but I very much long for the days (that i've heard about and not necessaril experienced but seen enough to give it some credibility) of REAL quality.
People replace appliances these days every few years via planned obsolence etc. I remember my grandparents used to have fridges and other appliances that were 10+ years old and still going strong versus complaints of recent stuff from LG or whatever other company that looked AWESOME compared to 10+ year old fridges but would develop issues within 2-3 years.
How as a society did we allow that to be ok?
Your grandparents paid the equivalent of many thousands of 2012 dollars for their appliances back then. If you pay $10,000 for a fridge now, you can certainly get one with the same level of quality as you claim your grandparents did. You are comparing apples and oranges: you want to pay 2012 prices for stuff but you want 1955 durability. You have to pay 1955 prices for stuff (i.e. $10,000 for a fridge) if you want 1955 durability.
You do know that just 20 years ago, Macintosh computers easily cost $5,000 or more, don't you? What you can get now for less than $2,500 is just light years better than what was available then at any cost.
Also, consider that your grandparents 1955 fridge had far, far fewer features than modern ones do. It was vastly less efficient, and had many fewer additiona parts (ice makers, de-icers, etc) to break.
The simple fact is that consumer appliances and electronics have decreased in price and increased in functionality many, many orders of magnitude since your grandparents day. Back then many middle class families could not afford a TV; now, even people living below the poverty line can afford TVs and cell phones and game consoles and what have you, and each one of these devices is 1,000 times more featureful than their 1955 counterparts.
Furthermore, there are plenty of consumer appliances and electronics today that are just as durable as those of 1955. And the automobile of 2012 is HUGELY more reliable than its 1955 equivalent.