I’m at serious risk of sounding older than my years here, but they don’t make things like they used to, do they?
As a child I never really understood this phrase, but I do now. Despite having better technology than say, twenty, thirty or more years ago – laptops, smart phones, smart televisions and all-singing, all-dancing digital, programmable, automatic that-and-this, which continue to revolutionise the way we live our lives – it seems that the build quality of goods is, in actual fact, getting worse. Much worse…
White goods – or black, stainless steel, titanium or whatever other colour goods as we now know them – are a typical example.
I remember being able to climb inside my parents’ washing machine when I was a toddler. I also remember that same washing machine being used to wash my secondary school uniforms and using it myself for my work clothes. If I remember correctly, the reason it got replaced was not due to any major fault, it was more that the odd switch had simply broken off, or that it was just no longer cosmetically-pleasing.
When I left home I bought a brand new fridge-freezer, a washing machine and a used tumble-dryer; I paid £50 for the tumble-dryer and only had to replace the belt, a job I did myself, once in almost ten years. Its life however, expired in wafts of smoke as the motor finally burnt out last year, but I think that may have been more my fault than the machines’, I don’t think it liked being used all day, rammed to its over-burdened door-hinge with stuff…
Both new items however, suffered major failures within a few years, within just days of the warranties expiring in fact. Both so-called ‘engineers’ I called out to look at them informed me that they would be so expensive to fix, that it would be cheaper to ‘re-cycle’ them and buy new items… Really!?
Well, yes actually. I didn’t have the funds to replace both at the time, so my father gave me an old fridge-freezer which he had obtained second-hand some years before but which he no longer needed and I bought a new washing machine. I am on yet another washing machine since, having decided to purchase the most expensive I could afford – it’s lasted four years so far… a record!
I have also only just begrudgingly purchased a new fridge-freezer. I say begrudgingly because it was only the fact that the magnetic door seals had split, making the temperature-controlled environment somewhat erratic causing the inevitable ‘ice monster’ to invade. Oh, and the fact that replacement parts were no longer available; I was therefore forced to buy a new one.
Checking the model of my old reliable second, third or even fourth-hand (who knows!?) fridge-freezer given to me several years ago by my father, I ascertained that it was built somewhere between 1988 and 1991. It was between twenty-three and twenty-six years old! When the new one was delivered and they took the old one away I mentioned this, adding that I doubt I’ll still have the new one in 2040! Without hesitation, they agreed.
In fact, I know full well that I won’t. I’m no expert, but I examined the ‘workings’ in the back of the old one – pipes, motor and electrical cables – all solid build quality, the metal pipes thick, heavy and secured in place with metal clamps, the motor casing rock solid. On the new one the pipes are like drinking straws which have been poked through a thin tin-foil skin and then left unsecured to flap about. It’s almost as though these things aren’t actually supposed to last…
Indeed, if we look at modern communications tech, we’ll notice that a certain electronics giant manufactures popular portable multi-media gadgetry with rechargeable but non-replaceable batteries, which substantiates this idea; a practice which ensures that once the aforementioned battery has taken its last possible charge and discharge you will inevitably be forced to buy another.
Indeed, they’re all at it now – how long will your shiny new smart phone, tablet or other such device be useful when major apps you enjoy using no longer support it? It’s happened to me, and it happened only fourteen months into a twenty-four month contract; no system or app updates were forthcoming to allow me the full use of my device, forcing me into almost a year of owning what amounted to a pretty-looking, but very basic handset. I may just as well have gone through the legacy of one too many house-moves in the attic – dozens of unpacked boxes of stuff – to find one of my old late-1990s handsets, and I bet it would work. I dropped one of these in the bath once: a few minutes with a hairdryer later and it switched on again first time. How many modern handsets would do this?
Which brings me on to the burning question of planned obsolescence: if a layman can differentiate the build quality between an old and new type of kitchen appliance, and major tech companies and app developers are working to ensure minimum product lifespans, then manufacturers truly are being rather blatant about the fact that they no longer care about building a reputation for reliability and longevity, instead choosing improved function and performance.
However, a vital component of performance surely has to be reliability? It would seem that this no longer applies!? It’s all about features, as many as possible, which at best you will enjoy only for the duration of the warranty, because as far as I can tell, that’s exactly how long you will have before you are forced to replace it. This will then fill the coffers of manufacturers, enabling them to develop the next ‘must have’ feature, which will also have a similar lifespan to its predecessor.
Trouble is it also shows that we, as consumers, are changing: buying more products from the same manufacturers simply because we must have the most slick, up-to-date gizmos they throw into the market-place on a seeming weekly basis; just to fuel what surely amounts to ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ is, to my mind at least, simply astonishing.
It would seem then, that although maybe not sounding older than my years, I am simply part of the last generation of consumers who appreciates quality over quantity. Old philosophy that you only get what you pay for, that you should buy the most expensive items you can afford no longer applies though, because let’s face it, even base-model items aren’t exactly cheap are they!? Then again, mid-top level goods still fail long before their twenty year-old counterparts. So perhaps we should forget about cosmetic appeal, gadgetry and what our friends may perceive as ‘good brands’ or ‘best features’ and simply either keep our older, more reliable goods, or put the technology of the throwaway generation to its best possible use: use it to source older items we know were reliable in good working order, or if not for the parts no longer available to repair those we already have.
In a time when ‘eco-friendly’ this and ‘green’ that has become important across every industry to reduce the impact of decades of landfill and other contributors to our carbon footprint, does this old-school idea of ‘make do and mend’ seem so foreign a suggestion? Granted, unwanted electrical equipment is recycled, but why not keep a good, reliable item if you can? Or buy another, make one good out of the two and recycle the other? I certainly wish I had, looking at the ‘quality’ of my new fridge-freezer – you may wish to consider this option too. You’ll be visiting the recycling centre in a few years with any modern replacement, anyway!
Will Martin's Musings 
Yes, and isn’t it strange how, 1-2 years after buying a major appliance, there comes through the door an invitation to insure said product/s as ‘your warranty is due to expire’? And isn’t it also strange – or perhaps the law of the Sod – how, if you throw caution to the wind and ignore said insurance invitations, thinking ‘Oh, it’s only two years old it’s got years in it yet’, the damned thing goes and breaks down…UNinsured?! Well done, Will, for highlighting something we perhaps routinely accept as part of the modern way of living (i.e. that nothing has a finite life) when really we ought not to.