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[The Pleasure]

So many bluetooth speakers made in China crapping out after like a year of use. I still have a fucking ghettoblaster from the 70s that still works and slaps harder than any bluetooth speaker can ever hope to produce. And at better quality too. I refuse to get Samsung Smart washers and dryers and have the old style drum ones from Maytag which are still far more reliable.

I'm not a luddite, but some shit is clearly better than the newer shit. My TV is made in Japan, my cookware is made in America, my smoker is custom made by someone locally. Though I still tweak my old computer hardware and build old computer laptops. It's weird seeing all those parts say "Made in USA" And it still works. Thirty years after it came out.

 

[Gamerguy84]

I hear ya. I have a set of speakers I got in 1991 and they are loud and bassy.

I have two full kitchens in my house. The nice kitchen has an old kenmoore refrigerator in it that has never seen a service call. The other kitchen has a stainless Samsung fridge thats only 3 years old and has had different things wrong half its life.

I used to buy things as cheap as I could. Now I research which one is the best quality and buy that. Spending a few extra dollars can go a long way.

 

[lock2k]

I still like wired headphones. Fuck bluetooth.

I also really ilke my old iPod classic to listen to all the stuff that is not on streaming services.

 

[Nymphae]

Any Gameboy > a smartphone for games

 

[V2Tommy]

OP is experiencing confirmation bias. You have old products that work well because they were always good products to begin with. These have always been cheap products on the market since the 1980s that have long disappeared.

For instance, cars have never been more reliable than today, even if they have 100x harder to repair if they go wrong. Your own experience will give you your opinion, but it doesn't change the fact that things aren't inherently worse today, quality-for-quality level, than before.

 

[Davey Cakes]

The iPod Classic is still the best way to listen to music IMO. Just a portable hard drive with a headphone jack. If you download high quality files, you always have those files.

Spotify is my go-to now because of convenience, but I always wonder what sacrifices I'm making to the actual sound of the music. Also, it's not like the service offers absolutely everything.

As for speakers, I had a set of Klipsch desk speakers for college in 2007 that cost $70 and sounded better than anything I've used since. I remember buying my brother a set of Bose speakers that were double the price and not nearly as good.

 

[Tesseract]

not really, my tolerance for nostalgia is limited

 

[Flying Toaster]

it is all situational especially in audio equipment. I do believe as things become more advanced and parts manufacturing becomes even more streamlined that certain products use cheaper parts. This is just part of product evolution and sometimes it is a negative. We have publicly traded companies wanting to make the most products at the lowest bottom line to appease shareholders and as long as product reliability is within a certain margin the company is happy.

I do find it fascinating as I get older more and more people are going after bespoke products more than ever before. At least in my circles.

 

[Scotty W]

There is a great book by Packers Vance from the late 1950’s called The Waste Makers, about the start of planned obsolescence.

I am nit sure of much of subsequent history, but America was pumping out junk in those days. Things changed in the car arena when Japanese cars appeared on the scene, and America was forced to go back to a higher standard, and or make the aesthetics obsolete.

It wiuld be interesting to know what happened outside Detroit.

 

[nush]

I brought the flatscreen HD TV in 2007, it still worked but it was outspecced by cheaper newer TVs. So I had to upgrade, I bet if I let that TV run for years it would be still functional longer than the newer TVs.

 

[Nymphae]

Gameboys do seem like they were sturdier hardware than today's portable devices. I have a DSLite, and the shoulder buttons kind of start to go after a while, the hinge is prone to snapping, it just feels flimsier (despite still being a totally solid Nintendo product), but Gameboys right up until the GBA feel like these indestructible and very comfy singular purpose devices. Sometimes I just look at my GBC and I'm like damn Nintendo was the shit for a while.

 

[-Arcadia-]

As a great man once said:

Chy-na.

It's also worth pointing out that some devices are getting more complex than ever, with so many more failure points. You want sleek, ultra thin, new features every year, etc., something is going to give.

 

[The Pleasure]

OP is experiencing confirmation bias. You have old products that work well because they were always good products to begin with. These have always been cheap products on the market since the 1980s that have long disappeared.

For instance, cars have never been more reliable than today, even if they have 100x harder to repair if they go wrong. Your own experience will give you your opinion, but it doesn't change the fact that things aren't inherently worse today, quality-for-quality level, than before.

Thing is I've had a dozen different blue tooth speakers. All of them at best either never sounded anywhere near as good as my 30-40 lb boombox made with steel or they broke. The boombox is older then me.

The car thing I can't really go into details since I don't drive due to no feeling in my foot. But the Honda Accord is still in my possession. The car is 20 years old and still runs great. My tv is from 2011 but it's the high tier plasma. I think it was a Panasonic VT25? Or VT30? I don't remember off the top of my head. Even my Panasonic UT50 is still in good working condition while my friends Samsung tvs just shit themselves.

 

[V2Tommy]

My tv is from 2011 but it's the high tier plasma. I think it was a Panasonic VT25? Or VT30? I don't remember off the top of my head. Even my Panasonic UT50 is still in good working condition while my friends Samsung tvs just shit themselves.

Sure, I'm also a Panasonic plasma owner from that time period and it's perfect.

But you're comparing against Samsung in this case. A brand-new Panasonic OLED will likely last as long as your plasma did/does. And a new Accord, not Elantra, will also last 20 years. In the case of your Bluetooth speaker, that didn't exist back then, and it also has batteries and is meant to be portable to the point of throwing into a bag. If your boombox had internal batteries, it'd be toast decades ago.

 

[synchronicity]

Yep.

In the quest for efficiency and profitability, concessions to quality are sometimes (often) made.

 

[Elektro Demon]

I agree. Old tech was the best. Not too complicated and robust, made to last years.

 

[poppabk]

Not really but I do have a bunch of older stuff that I still use, but it is mainly because I am frugal as fuck. I always have culture shock in those threads where someone posts incredulously about how their 2017 MacBook or TV from 2015 or whatever is still going strong.

 

[Mistake]

Most of my old stuff still works fine, but that's probably because they used lead in solder for ages. I've been seriously disappointed with console builds after PS2/GCN. TV's hold up pretty good, but microwaves, washers, dryers all crap out randomly. I had a Smart microwave that cooked itself!

 

[Dave_at_Home]

Most of my old stuff still works fine, but that's probably because they used lead in solder for ages. I've been seriously disappointed with console builds after PS2/GCN. TV's hold up pretty good, but microwaves, washers, dryers all crap out randomly. I had a Smart microwave that cooked itself!

I've known appliance repair men that tell me the same thing. Nothing is built like it once was. All of it on purpose. There's also no point in fixing most of it since companies only make additional parts for year, maybe two. Once the warranty is up, the parts are gone. Poof. That way, if you really want to bother with replacing parts, they will charge you hundreds of dollars since it needs to be specially made just for you. Company mindset here is: wouldn't you just want to purchase a nice new one instead?

 

[jufonuk]

It’s almost like things are designed to break after a while forcing us to buy more.
I miss the built to last attitude

 

[Davey Cakes]

I think my refrigerator is 30-40 years old and only needed to be repaired once. We only just replaced our clothes dryer last year after decades of use as well.

 

[Echelon]

New stuff is good and durable too, you just need to pay for it like you've always had to. The only difference now is that cheap, disposable options are more prevalent, and people have less money so they can't afford to buy the good shit.

 

[Tesseract]

obsolescence is getting worse, not better

sucks to see everything depreciate with such rapidity

oh whale

 

[MetalAlien]

Even my bicycle is 22 years old, I still have shirts from highschool in my closet (i'm 49). Even the forum I post at is from the 90s.