[stdbrouw]

> A spokeswoman for the Association for Home Appliance Manufacturers says [...] data last updated in 2019 shows that the average life of an appliance has “not substantially shifted over the past two decades.”

So, unless she is lying, there is actually no story?

[inejge]

"Substantially" is doing a lot of work there, and "last updated in 2019" means half a decade out of date. It's a fun modeling exercise: how much do you need to reduce durability in order to make people spend 40%+ more on replacements (in constant dollars, I suppose)? I'm pretty sure that the members of the Association for Home Appliance Manufacturers have created that model, but they're not going to share it with the public. If the answer is a few percent, disregarding the last five years, they're not strictly lying. Just not telling you the whole truth.

[Suppafly]

I'm inclined to believe it. Most of the appliances, other than washers and dryers, that I see people replace are generally replaced due to simply wanting something nicer or newer and not because the last one stopped working. People have this belief bias that old appliances are better because of some old fridge in their garage that has been trucking along for 60 years, but the reality is that that is just survivorship bias. The only real exception would be 'smart' features that fail before the core utility of the appliance fails. I imagine a lot of perfectly good fridges get replaced when the tv screens on them break and whatnot.