> But would anyone want to be using it in 50 years?
I would happily use a washing machine, dishwasher or fridge that is 50 years old. The only tech advances related to those gadgets that would concern me are CFCs in the refrigerant.
Newer fridges have drastically better energy efficiency. It literally takes less resources to make and throw away 5 fridges over these 50 years than to produce the electricity that this old monster wastes uselessly over the same time.
Eh. When I moved from an apartment with a ~30 year old dishwasher to one with a new one, I was pretty startled by how much cleaner it got my dishes when I didn't pre-rinse them as much as I used to have to.
