The New Planned Obsolescence

Obsolescence is such a nice word. I like how it rolls off my tongue. In practice, however, I despise the idea of obsolescence.  Today we associate it with phones that can no longer be updated (I miss my iPhone 4, thank you very much). It still functions and I use it as a camera for eBay listings. But it cannot connect to Verizon's network. It cannot be updated by Apple.

Phones are not refrigerators, however. The simpler ones are the only ones I will buy, and they do not require software updates. No smart appliances, ever, for me.

Once upon a time, Maytag had the reputation for simple, indestructible appliances. Hence their repairman, "the loneliest guy in the world," an ad-campaign worthy of Don Draper of Sterling-Cooper.

Whirlpool, a company whose appliances I have found cheaply made in recent years, bought Maytag and just last month, we paid the price for this acquisition. We'd done our homework after a lightning-strike burned up a high-tech Samsung refrigerator we owned. 

Maytag had high ratings, and I found a floor-model at a locally owned appliance dealer at a nice discount. It had a warranty. Yet in fewer than five years, our simple top-freezer model began to die a slow death. First, the drains would not work in the freezer, so water began to drip into the lower compartment. Then the cooling in the lower compartment stopped working, despite a service call from a locally owned and well-regarded repair shop.  

As the repairman told me, nothing save a Subzero may last more than a decade. Nothing. Companies build their appliances that way, using cheaper parts than they once did, to keep prices stable while getting us to buy replacements more often.

It was not always that way. My GE circulating fan has been in action since before I was born, and the 1940s Frigidaire in my parent's kitchen endured 30 years, until we moved out of the house. Yes, it had to be defrosted. Yes, it did not make ice save in those hard-to-employ metal trays.

Luddite I can be, I wonder what we have gained except a costly convenience and, on a more positive note, energy efficiency. I yearn for government action to punish firms for this wasteful practice, but that seems such a 20th-Century idea in our Cyberpunk present.

So we purchased a simple GE "ice box," a term I still like to use, for under $1000. No ice-maker, either. I am using plastic trays. I did purchase a countertop Frigidaire ice-maker from Amazon that does not require a water-line. It recycles ice that does not get used, melting and re-freezing it. So far we have yet to plug it in, because the GE fridge works well enough for Spring weather. Come Summer we'll need more ice.

I doubt that our new GE will last 30 years, which would also be about my own expiration date. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I am going to try...mightily...to only buy things that have a reputation for longevity.

The dumber the tool, the longer it lasts. Dumb as a hammer. Ever broken one of them?