That's a bit of a coincidence. I was there having a chin-wag with Elvis the same day - just by that London bus.

Spot on.
No-one makes people buy their stuff, it's not compulsory.

Well you say that - and largely you're absolutely correct - but where I'd make a more nuanced comment is that most of consider that we have little choice but to own/buy a fridge or a washing machine.

A mobile is one thing - those are very different (as I have just found out, to my expense).

But you do have a choice of a very large number of both manufacturers and sellers.

you do indeed, but they all play the same game.

Look back to when you were younger - how long did your parents or grandparents white goods last? I know my gran had a fridge bought in the 1940s that was still working in the 80s. Do you really expect yours to last that long? I don't.

It's the same with most products these days - cars, phones, computers; they all seem to have shorter lifespans than they did years ago. Surely that's the wrong way round?

The one exception there is cars, compared to 30 years ago cars will last much, much longer now, take a look around on the roads tomorrow and see how many 02 plates you can spot, those are ten year old cars and they are still passing MOT inspections and you will be hard pressed to see any rust marks on any of them - a ten year old car in the 1970s or even 80s was the one sat at the bottom of the pile of cars in the scrapyard.

I think that's a bit of a myth. I've had very few things fail. One washing machine at 20 years and the replacement has been going good for five. Perhaps one difference is we don't tend to repair stuff nowadays, but I expect my fridge to carry on, although it will more likely be replaced with one that warps food or something in a few years.

A fridge should be the most reliable of all domestic goods. The motor/compressor sits in a bath of oil and is running on a virtually continuous basis and is rarely subject to peaks of power required to operate other household appliances, such as washers etc. It's extremely rare for a fridge motor to pack up, usually it's corrosion to other components or perished seals that cause problems

Which means FA when everything fails after a certain point of time.

I'll relate this topic to wrisches as I do with most threads that I contribute towards on this forum. With the recent introduction of silicon into the watch industry it is now possible to manufacture watch calibers that will never require a service to regulate the time it tell's. A watches greatest enemy is friction (we'll conveniently forget vibration for the sake of this discussion) affecting both it's accuracy and longevity between services. The higher the watches beat rate/ oscillation of the balance wheel which is typically 28,800 beats per hour or 8 beats a second but can be as high as 43,200 BPH or 12 BPS, the more friction and stress parts suffer. But it's not the parts that fail first but rather the lubricants dry up first with excessive wear leading to irregularity of time and subsequent damage to the watch. The late George Daniels creator of Co-Axial escapement that Omega laud so much, has gone a long way towards abolishing this friction of the escapement but not entirely within the watch. However with the advent of silicone and the friction free properties that it possesses, it enables calibers to be produced without the need for lubricants at all, therefore now making it possible to produce watches that will never require a service. A high end product that will do it's job and last for ever, within reason of course. The very first friction free watch, that should theoretically never require a service. However only time will tell. www.thewatchquote.com/The-revolu ... o_6048.htm An interesting semi related story detailing what can happen when an old pocket watch isn't looked after. No silicone in sight. www.watchtime.com/2010/10/lange% ... lex-watch/

I'll relate this topic to wrisches as I do with most threads that I contribute towards on this forum. With the recent introduction of silicon into the watch industry it is now possible to manufacture watch calibers that will never require a service to regulate the time it tell's. A watches greatest enemy is friction (we'll conveniently forget vibration for the sake of this discussion) affecting both it's accuracy and longevity between services. The higher the watches beat rate/ oscillation of the balance wheel which is typically 28,800 beats per hour or 8 beats a second but can be as high as 43,200 BPH or 12 BPS, the more friction and stress parts suffer. But it's not the parts that fail first but rather the lubricants dry up first with excessive wear leading to irregularity of time and subsequent damage to the watch. The late George Daniels creator of Co-Axial escapement that Omega laud so much, has gone a long way towards abolishing this friction of the escapement but not entirely within the watch. However with the advent of silicone and the friction free properties that it possesses, it enables calibers to be produced without the need for lubricants at all, therefore now making it possible to produce watches that will never require a service. A high end product that will do it's job and last for ever, within reason of course. The very first friction free watch, that should theoretically never require a service. However only time will tell. www.thewatchquote.com/The-revolu ... o_6048.htm An interesting semi related story detailing what can happen when an old pocket watch isn't looked after. No silicone in sight. www.watchtime.com/2010/10/lange% ... lex-watch/

Which means FA as a statement.
Everything fails after a certain point in time. I don't expect my TV to last a million years.
Very, very few items fail in an unreasonable timeframe.

You'd be surprised how few manufacturers of washing machines and fridges there really are, many of the brands are owned by a few companies.

Bought a Pure DAB alarm radio/alarm clock a while back so hardly an antique being DAB. It's just packed in. It's basically a load of computer chips so WTF can go wrong with stuff like that?

Software is a good one as well. I use Adobe Lightroom for my photos and was quite happy running it on Windows XP. Latest version doesn't run on Windows XP. Have to upgrade to Windows 7 to get the new version. Things like that are all around and it isn't technology that drives it but profits.

What is "an unreasonable timeframe"?

I'm now on my third washing machine in 17 years. And I take enough care to invest in and use Calgon.

When I called a plumber out to the last one a few weeks ago, he was able to diagnose that the pump had packed in. It was an AEG – hardly a shabby make in the first place. But because it was designed to only open up in a rather complex fashion, he couldn't do anything about it.

So I was left with a choice: get an AEG specialist out to see if they could replace the pump – a job that, apparently, would have left me with a little change from £200, if I was lucky. This was a five-year-old machine. The plumber – who was making nothing from this advice (he didn't even charge a call-out fee) – went on to explain that he wouldn't even do such a big job on a machine of that age any longer, as there was absolutely no guarantee that it would extend the overall life of the machine to an extent that made such a job cost effective for the customer.

He said that even in the last 15 years he's seen a change in such machines – they're not as solidly made now and many parts that previously would have been metal, say, are now plastic.

So, in the event, we decided to invest that minimum £200 fee for a specialist into a new machine. But in all that time (and a few years more), my mother's sturdy machine hasn't failed. Indeed, that's only the second machine she's had in her entire married life of over 50 years.

And on what Big Graeme said – apparently AEG is actually owned by Zanussi (I think he said).

It's not just white goods, though. Take buildings: IIRC, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was built with a 30-year life in mind. The building I'm sitting in right now has a similar lifespan, apparently – although presumably that doesn't include the century-old listed bit that's been incorporated in the new building and totally renovated.

But this is bonkers.

It varies by product.