Those were the days, my friend,
We thought they’d never end.
...............
Good article. So true.
Moved into my present home 20 years ago. It had a GE air-conditioning unit that was original install, I think about 1978. After nearly 40 years, was a bit loud, a bit expensive, but worked well (live in NE, so its not getting heavy duty, like it would in the South)
Replaced it with a Lennox that failed after 6 years. The reason, I am told - condenser piping and guts have been mostly replaced with aluminum, so they have copper on aluminum welds, which will never last.
I remember being a kid and loving to tune into AM radio stations states away at night when they could come through after so many local stations signed off. Chicago, New Orleans, and many others here in the eastern US.
Nearly everything in this country is now regulated, controlled, taxed, monitored, or in some way influenced by the government. Nothing escapes Big Brother. Just look around you.
Why the Antique Mall is one of my favorite stores.
It will be sad when radio no longer works. Digital TV is digitally not worth watching. It was a transition that really wasn’t needed, since more people use other sources.
My SONY boombox from the 70’s still works albeit with a bit more static.
I have made machined parts for 1950s and 60s era reel to reel tape decks for a friend of mine. Not because there is any money in it but because it is enjoyable. Sure it still works and can be repaired. But some things just aren’t worth the headache.
However, things like refrigerators, washer / dryers, dishwashers, and things like that. The new ones are JUNK. My old ammonia “Beer Fridge” in the shop is 70 years old and has never broken down. A friend of mine bought a brand new fridge and it has been replaced three times and still doesn’t work and they sent another control board. The new washers have no durability in the transmission. And the dryers have too many sensors that break. I will agree with that. Give me the old school heavy appliances any time.
Meh, that radio is labeled solid state, so it’s not that ancient. About 35 years ago, when I was a 30-something grad student, people moving out of offices would leave unwanted items such as old coffeemakers on a table in the lounge area. One day an old tabletop radio showed up there, and when I happened by later, it was playing rather loudly. It was a nice-looking radio and it sounded OK, so I took it home. I realized later that some youngster had plugged it in and turned it on, then decided it didn’t work and left, not realizing that it was a vacuum-tube radio that took a minute to warm up, just like most of the radios and TV sets when I was a kid.
I still have that radio and it still works, though I don’t have any spare tubes for it, so when one blows it’ll be done for. Can’t just use the tube tester down at the Piggly-Wiggly and pick up a new tube nowadays.
I saw an article recently regarding technology, cars, car repairs and car insurance. I forget the make and model of the car that was discussed, but the gist of the report was that about a decade ago the number of parts in the fron end of the car totalled 78. Today, with computer chips and computerized senors ubiquitous all over a car, that same make and model car today has over 25o parts in the front end. The main point of the report was as much as the car makers are touting all their new technolgy, it comes at a cost at repair time and what that repair cost means to insurance premimums.
Yes, there are some advances in technology that are not always advances in every way.
I’m going on a two week business trip to Texas, leaving Saturday. On occasion, I like to camp once in a while instead of hotels. I was just thinking a few minutes ago if we have an old portable radio I can take along or if I can get one on Amazon.
1. A demographic decline.
2. An affluent society that has pretty much everything it needs — and many, many things it doesn’t really need.
3. Refined manufacturing processes that make things cheaper to produce than ever before.
4. Relentless competition that puts product sellers into an endless “race to the bottom” in pricing.
The end result of all this is that under the conditions we had in prior generations, it’s no longer a worthwhile investment to produce consumer products and durable goods anymore.
Just think about that for a moment: A company can’t make money producing most of the things you use in your everyday life anymore.
The only way around this dilemma is a three-pronged business model: (A) planned obsolescence of your products, (B) employing fascist/crony capitalism tactics to outlaw competition, and (C) use those same tactics to force people to buy the things you produce (think of the whole business model for defense contractors and pharmaceutical firms, for example).
It’s really that simple.
They did. But they also didn’t. A lot of it was the root technology at the time. We just didn’t have the ability to make “delicate” machines and electronic. There was not printed circuit board. There were no small tolerance transistors and resistors. If it didn’t get shot those things were hard to break. Of course on the other hand there was also the significantly less durable things. Like TVs. I remember when the first thing you’d run into in any hardware store was the tube tester. And it always had a line. Every couple of months something on the TV wasn’t working so you’d take the back off, look at the schematic on the back, take out a bunch of tubes, go stick em in the tester, replace all the ones that failed, go back home and put the TV back together. There were plenty of things that had a similar constant maintenance cycle. In the end I think things are more reliable now.
Great article. I grew up in the 50s and we had none of this: “…downloads, firmware updates, cyber crooks, credit card fraud,platforms, passwords, no little pull-down menus, no verifications or account recovery protocols.” We never once used “mother’s maiden name.”
The lights always came on and dial tone was 100% reliable. Not once did we say “Can you hear me? You’re breaking up. What?”
You never had to call “Customer Support.” Heck, nobody had ever even HEARD of “customer support” because it wasn’t needed and hadn’t been invented.
There was zero constant insanity about election theft, commies grabbing control, trannies, homos, murdering babies, excrement all over city streets, graffiti everywhere, druggies shooting up everywhere.
Lawfare was an unheard of concept. Persecuting ex-presidents, his attorneies, and confidants was off limits. Abolishing the electoral college was off limits.
In short, the country was sane and everything worked.
In a generation or two, there will not be anybody with living memory anbout the days when everything worked.
/old curmudgeon rant.
When mr mm and i appliance shop, we look for the least computer driven things we can. We avoid computer chips in a control pad at all cost because when they go, it’s a fortune to replace.
planned obsolescence is a big part of it. It’s good for corporations if we have to replace the item every 2-5 years instead of 10-15 years.