James May (unusually) made a very good point that the "good old days" is an illusion created by survivorship bias, nostalgia, and failure to understand economics. The survivorship bias especially should be obvious:
Lots of cheap crap was made throughout the years, but it didn't survive. We only have examples of the stuff that managed to survive, or was notable in some way. The $50 Smartphone equivalent of the 50's was no more notable than today's version, and no more long-lasting.
The difference between a top 1% appliance and an average appliance is probably less than $10 of materials and $5 in labor.
Once you work in manufacturing you realize that components are actually very expensive, not a $10 joke.
In the case of a refrigerator, the manufacturer undersized the motor, probably to meet some efficiency standard. The previous years model had an adequate motor, which worked much better.
I've also seen cases (Whirlpool refrigerators) where they included a rubber nipple that was too narrow, and would either freeze up and clog with biofilm. End result was icing of the condenser and evaporator. (Here's a description of the problem: https://partsdr.com/blog/w10619951-updated-drain-tube-fix-ki... )
Meanwhile my cheap apartment-scale fridge was made with chewing gum and hope.
http://aceee.org/blog/2014/09/how-your-refrigerator-has-kept...
For refrigerators at least, it doesn't make sense to make them robust enough to last more than 10-15 years since it's worth it to replace them over that time period. My understanding is the vast majority of refrigerators are then recycled. All those metals are valuable.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18176916/ns/business-consumer_news...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+may+reass...
I also strongly recommend the mini-motorcycle episode.
"Therefore medieval England must have been full of cathedrals. It must have been amazing!"
Even Lego is looking to cut mfg costs (or has, was an older article) by switching to cheaper plastic, and removing some of the supports.
What kind of world are we living in where we need cheaper plastic?
These product comparisons all fail because today, we can make so much cheaper products than we could back then. And we are now comparing the cheapest crap (even a 100$ keyboard is cheap in comparison to the Model M) with MUCH more expensive products from the past. (Lego might be an exception here, as that product is the same)
Being both non-American and non-public, LEGO are less susceptible to the MBA bean-counting that is at the root of most of the problems described in this thread.
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/25...
