This Is Nothing New:
Way, way back in the Dark Ages of the late 1950's, there was an uproar created by social critic Vance Packard, who wrote several books on consumerism and consumer manipulation, including The Hidden Persuaders (1957) and The Waste Makers (1960); several of them were best-sellers in that more socially-conscious age.
In The Waste Makers, Packard exposed the manipulations of product quality that were already beginning to shorten the life of durable goods, and also exposed the latest buzzword among America's manufacturing companies, "planned obsolescence." His books caused something of a furor; some corporations responded by curbing some of their worst excesses, like the shoddy cars turned out in the 1957-1959 time frame; there's a big quality difference between a 1957 Ford and a 1960 model. The most upsetting thing for Packard's readers was finding out that corporations were consciously and cynically shortening product lifespans to increase sales potential - that "planned obsolescence" concept.
Obviously, "planned obsolescence" never really went away, and it's very much back in style today. Anyone who wants a good look at the beginning of Corporate America's slide into mediocrity and abuse of consumers would do well to locate The Waste Makers and give it a read.
When you read it, remember that the compromised durable goods Packard warned readers about are the same ones many of us collect; what is of incredibly high quality today was seen as shoddy in its time - which some of it was; there were too many breakdown-prone gizmos on many late-'50s appliances, and quality cuts like the millimicron-thick paint of Westinghouse appliances of the era plague restorers today.
It's nothing new, folks. But not even Vance Packard saw what was coming with offshore manufacture and cheap ABS plastics.
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Perhaps newer appliances have a "death chip"so they will drop dead after X amount of time or operations has been completed LOL
