Why Your New Appliances Die So Young

Your parents had a refrigerator that survived three presidents and a kitchen remodel.Yours has a touchscreen, Wi-Fi, seventeen sensors, and a nervous breakdown after four years. So what happened?In this episode of It Shouldn’t Be This Hard, we dig into why modern appliances seem to be getting more complicated, less repairable, and suspiciously worse at staying alive. Is it planned obsolescence? Government efficiency rules? A race to the bottom on price? Or did we simply add a computer to every household object that absolutely did not need one?We get into circuit boards replacing simple switches, plastic replacing metal, $12 parts buried behind $600 repair bills, and why buying the “better” model sometimes just means getting more things that can break. And because complaining without solving anything is basically just a homeowners association meeting, we’ll also talk about what to actually look for if you want an appliance that might still be working a decade from now.It shouldn’t be this hard to buy a machine that washes things. And yet, here we are.