I think about this a lot. Three years ago, I spent a lot of money redoing my kitchen. Felt like it was way too much for what I was getting but was told this was a 10-15 year thing. Flash forward 1 manufacturer’s year warranty.
Ice maker in my fridge stopped working two weeks after the warranty ran out. I’ve paid to have it replaced once, and then they came back to fix it under their warranty, but said they wouldn’t again because it was a design flaw in the manufacturing. It currently doesn’t work.
The “brushed aluminum” trim is basically a giant silver decal that is currently peeling off of my oven, microwave, and dishwasher.
Speaking of the oven, the igniter has burned out three times. The guy that replaced the first one showed me how to do it again because he was surprised that this one lasted that long. They go bad about every 3 months so you might as well learn how to change it. "These are pure shit, " he said. The manufacturer’s part is $78 and is not warranty if you put it in. A generic ignitor is $18 and has a one year warranty.
Stuff is not made to last at fucking all. I feel like we’re being fleeced.
I’ve always seen it that on average everyone got okay with buying cheap shit because of how bullet proof the more expensive stuff was: “okay it won’t last quite as long, but it’s less than half the price”
Over time, more and more people go for the lower end of the market and the high end starts to compromise on quality in order to compete and not become entirely irrelevant.
Eventually, the market is saturated at a given quality level and the cycle continues again because humans are idiots and the dopamine hit of “getting a good deal” can easily override a lot of more rational reasoning.
There are a few brands out there that do still build to a high (and repairable) standard. Funnily this topic came up the other day on here about Miele stuff, and generally they are still pretty high standard today.
If you’re in the market for a new appliance, the best strategy seems to be, find a local repairman for whatever it is you’re looking to buy (or maybe see if you can find a repair community online) and just ask which are the best built brands and then go and buy something from their middle or high end. Never bother with the low end, even with an otherwise good manufacturer.
Obviously, and this is the kicker, this can be prohibitively expensive for many people, so manufacturers probably will continue to be incentivised to race to the bottom.