I don't think so. First of all, there are lots of quality improvements that could make life longer, at almost zero additional cost per unit. Also, repairability could be improved.
Second, there is an ecconomic problem with information asymetry - while I know the pricetag, I have no idea what the life expectancy is. So you get https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons ; that's not the customer's preference.
The latter could be possible to fix if we mandated producers to publish "expected usage per lifetime" (MTBF) numbers and also show price/usage ratio to customers.
I don't entirely disagree, but there's always going to be a weakest link when you're targeting a low price point. It doesn't seem to take a whole lot of research to find that better fridges with those issues fixed _are_ available if you're willing to spend a bit more, people commenting on this article even linked to some.
> The latter could be possible to fix if we mandated producers to publish "expected usage per lifetime" (MTBF) numbers and also show price/usage ratio to customers.
I support this idea, but I'd also say the numbers presumably would not be significantly different from the warranty already offered on these things. I feel like it's not much of a secret that the warranty is intended to last the minimum lifetime of the product and not more. If they were confident in their product lasting longer, they'd sell you a longer warranty.
I think there's also an unmentioned detail here, which is that many people probably won't own the same fridge for 20 or 30 years anyway - when you move, you commonly leave your fridge behind. There's not a huge incentive to buy an expensive fridge that could last a long time if you think it's likely you'll move before then anyway.
We spent about $12,000 on our fridge 15 years ago when we first renod our house and its still going just fine. Never once has it had to be serviced.
