> 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.

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.