[giantg2]

"but many technicians refuse to work on them due to poor design and poor availability of parts. So when they break after 2-5 years,"

That's the point - only junk fridges would need to be worked on in the first 5 years. I know if a freezer from the 80s and a fridge from the 60s that have never seen a technician in their lives. At this rate, that one from the 60s will probably have a longer lifespan than I will.

[quatrefoil]

Appliance repairmen existed in the 1980s, we probably had more of them per capita than we do now, and they had their hands full. The idea that it's often easier to toss out an appliance than to repair it is a newer trend...

[trashtester]

Actually, from my personal experience, the biggest decline in durabilty for many types of appliances happened during the 1980s, and may have started in the late 70s.

Btw, half of the problem was that repairs really started to require more specialized knowledge and equipment around that time, due to a sharp rise in the use of electronic components to control anything from a hair dryer to a car. To some extent this was the cost of progress, but it's pretty clear that manufacturers saw the benefit in either preventing repairs to force customers to buy new or to profit from "authorized" repairs in various ways.

And as both salaries and income taxes went up quickly in the 80s where I lived, qualified technicians went up in price much more quickly than the machines they repaired.

There was perhaps one thing pulling in the opposite direction during that decade, though, and that was the high interest rates. If you had to borrow money to get something new, repairing the old one (whether it was a TV or a car) still made sense

[distances]

It's a straightforward outcome thanks to dropping prices of household electronics. If a new car was the price of a new dishwasher, that would signal the end of car repair shops too.

[Suppafly]

>It's a straightforward outcome thanks to dropping prices of household electronics. If a new car was the price of a new dishwasher, that would signal the end of car repair shops too.

This, I don't know why so many people fail to recognize this. I suppose part of it is inflation so they forget that basic appliances used to cost 10x what they cost now. My parents had to save up to buy a microwave, I could buy one a week and only be mildly inconvenienced. I just helped a buddy move a fridge that cost ~$1000, that would have been something like $4000 in 1980 dollars.