>The old timers who almost universally report this phenomenon just don't know enough arm chair statistics. Delusional, basically.
Most all the links that you've referenced do acknowledge the role of perceived obsolescence, ie, replacement of an appliance before its useful life is up. That, along with selection bias and the absence of solid data from the 50s-70s, are important factors that are unaccounted for. Snark won't change that.
Selection/survivorship bias isn't something you just get to make up... it's also not a smart guess, in this case, because the common anecdotes don't make the mistake of saying "oh, most of these washers are new, therefore old washers must suck." That would be selection bias, but no one is saying that, as far as I can tell. They are saying, the average age of appliances at replacement is decreasing over time. Selection bias would not explain that.
Now the GP, whose train of thought you seem to relate to very closely here, suggested -- without evidence -- that labor costs have gone up, explaining why you both seem to think people simply throw away good appliances now, instead of repairing them.
The problem is that real labor costs have been stagnant for middle class workers (i.e. appliance repair people) during the period for which I actually cited data. So it's very unlikely that would be the explanation. Can you generate another explanation for why people would throw away good appliances now?
Meanwhile, the skill set required to fix an appliance has increased beyond blue collar level (complex automation, sensors, switching power supplies and motor control) while the large diversity of brands and technical solutions requires specialized parts which are rare and thus expensive due to simple economics. A vicious cycle is enforced where repairs become expensive relative to the appliance cost, less people perform them, therefore it does not pay to design for repair because it will make your appliance more expensive, therefore it becomes even harder to repair - so even less people do it.
The reliability has indeed gone down and it has a detrimental effect on the environment. But it's not a conspiracy, it's basic economics in an consumerist environment. There is no evidence for a cartel of planned obsolescence. The appliances are build cheaply enough to last just enough for the average life consumers expect, during which they are usually covered under warranty.
People don't want refrigerators that last a life time, they want refrigerators cheap enough so they can replace them every 5 years. They might say otherwise but vote with their wallets for just that. You might not be in that category, me neither, but we are a but a statistical blimp in the market, not enough to induce manufacturers to change this behavior.
To illustrate the point further, take the car industry. The reliability, performance, affordability and eco-friendliness of cars have all improved dramatically form the 50s, despite similar consolidation and reduction in competition. Why is that ? Because cars are expensive, people expect them to be repairable and function reliably for decades.
Adding up the "time cost" of the first 5 major appliances in the list, I figure the real cost of major appliances has gone down by a factor of 5 between 1959 and 2013. And by a factor of 3 between 1973 and 2013.
Interesting this roughly corresponds to the decrease in lifespan alleged by the linked article. So one could surmise that the quality has been reduced in order to to keep the per capita revenue up.
Whether or not this is a free market "preference" effect is highly debatable, since it amounts to customers getting basically none of the economic returns of better technology. There are also an awful lot of people out there who will tell you they do value reliability and dislike the trend.
Also, I think your view that "it's not a conspiracy" should possibly be tempered by the fact that several such "conspiracies", better known as cartels in market terms, have been revealed in great detail to history. And in all those actual cases, there were people beforehand who said it couldn't be so.
A new study commissioned by the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt – UBA)
has revealed that the lifespans of electrical and electronic appliances are
becoming shorter, with the amount of appliances replaced within five years due to
defects increasing from 3.5 per cent in 2004 to 8.3 per cent in 2013.