Canon F1

I think you are right that newer products are - generally - more poorly built. I'm at the point now where almost everything in my room is from the 90s or earlier! This isn't coming from some place of nostalgia, more so the genuine quality and reliability of this stuff, not to mention how cheap used is compared to new.

I do think, however, that part of this may be that all the cheapo shit that they undoubtedly made back then is gone, to landfill or otherwise, and all that's left is the high quality or professional grade stuff.

The one place the hipsters have it right is: for the most part, they don't build them like they used to.

To shed a ray of hope, I had a recent exception to this though. My wife complained about her KitchenAid mixer sounding funny and was convinced it was about to die at 10 years old. I dug around a bit and discovered they are designed with a kevlar gear mixed in with the steel ones. The idea is if you would damage the motor or other gears by putting too much strain on it this gear breaks instead, making it repairable. What a novel concept! Fast forward I have parts ordered, the whole thing taken apart then degreased, and said gear is in perfect shape. After 10 years of fairly heavy use, the funny noise was just the gears clattering a little due to the grease getting old. I regreased then reassembled and it's good as new. This is probably the only kitchen appliance I've owned that's been built in the last 20 years and was repairable.

Hi ~kudzu,

I think there is still technology that is highly durable. You just have to pay more for it. What has survived from the 1970's to today are not the cheap full-plastic cameras, it's the expensive made-for-professionals cameras like the Canon F1 that have survived. (I have used an Canon A1 for 2 decades)

I have just recently trashed a Laser-Printer, that in itself would still have worked (probably). But I started to have difficulty to find original toner cartridges. So I had to use knock-off ones from ebay. After 2-3 years I came across a set that had such bad quality that toner spilled everywhere and the transfer drum actually irreversibly damaged. I used that printer approx 15 years in total. It was still very good in printing black&white. I had decided to go with a professional grade laser printer after I had multiple ink printers for home use, of which the most broke even after one change of the cartridges. I willingly paid way more than I needed, knowing it would be cheaper in the long run. Just before tossing the laser printer I printed a status page. The Laser-Printer had barely printed around 5000 pages. That device was build for volumes much much larger (20k/year 100k/lifetime).

In my late 20s I made the concious decision to not buy cheap devices anymore. I buy the more expensive professional grade devices. Sometimes they lack a feature or two. Most of the time they are larger and heavier. But they always survive much much longer.

One thing that I cannot change are smartphones. There is only one quality ("mainstream"). There are "rugged" phones but those are for special use-case, not really suitable for my home and office only lifestyle. I don't go on construction sites or into underground mining facilities. I don't need a rugged durable smartphone. I live with the necessity to buy a new phone every 2-3 years.

~bartender; a scotch please. To all the fine engineers that actually do create durable devices.

Hello ~kudzu,

this is, how it used to be for me as well. My Nikon F3 has seen service, because I used it a lot in years long ago. But developing film, esp. slides, has become very expensive. So, mine is collecting dust, unfortunately. Same fate for the Nikon FM2.

They are contemplating the idea of switching off old fashioned (wide band) FM radio in favour of DAB+, which renders all of my radios dead immediately. At least one is a bit older than 30 years, but that is young for a radio. My brother has a much older one in his work shop.

My second turntable, purchased used in 1992 or so, has changed hands and is still in operation.

Ah, nostalgia.

~bartender? How about some old fashioned, filtered coffee? Yes? Thanks.