They Used to Last 50 Years (2015) | Hacker News Reader

They Used to Last 50 Years (2015)

recraigslist.com

15 pointsjseliger4 comments

This is a textbook example of survivorship bias.

  Survivorship bias, or survival bias, is the logical error of     
  concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some   
  process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not
  because of their lack of visibility...A commonly held
  opinion in many populations is that machinery, equipment,
  and goods manufactured in previous generations often is
  better built and lasts longer than similar contemporary
  items...Again, because of the selective pressures of time
  and use, it is inevitable that only those items which were
  built to last will have survived into the present day.
  Therefore, most of the old machinery still seen functioning
  well in the present day must necessarily have been built to
  a standard of quality necessary to survive.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias]

It is possible for both survivorship bias to exist and also for products to deteriorate in quality. The author is able to point to the reasons for failures rates being higher.

Some goods are better and cheaper such as electric hand tools. With white goods it is hard to get something that will last > 15 years. I'd be willing to pay twice or thrice the average price, but I don't see anything available^. I'm just hoping those new fridge linear compressors are going to do the job.

^ If wrong, do tell!

There's been some talk about "bullshit jobs" lately, it seems like there's also some "bullshit companies" that end up making products we don't need to buy nearly as often as we do.

Soooo anybody wanna disrupt this?

This takes a massive amount of capital and distribution is usually through department stores that both sell and often install the machines. Getting into department stores will be an uphill battle but, that's still less hard and cheaper than trying to make an installer network across a country.

You might initially make an enthusiast market of people willing to pay for quality and install the machines themselves but, it would have to be very specialized marketing. Maybe to people who service and repair appliances initially?

The author mentions mattresses and that market is being disrupted but, other than shipping (which seems a pretty sizable problem to solve) they don't have to worry too much about installation.

Also, the network of people to service the machines after the fact. It's hard, it will take alot of money and the most likely outcome is being purchased by one of the big companies and then they do the same thing sa before and use the brand but, make the same shitty machines underneath the disrupting company's logo.

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