Ecnerwal wrote
Rick Brandt wrote

This raises an apparent contradiction.

Perhaps you've not been adequately involved with your appliances
to see that there is not a contradiction, even "apparently".

Or perhaps you havent.

The old ones were, for the most part, designed to be repairable.

Yes. And so are the current ones too with the exception of plug packs etc.

"This part always breaks eventually, we'll
isolate it and make it easy to replace".

That is just plain silly with domestic appliances. There is bugger
all except light bulbs that cant be designed to last indefinitely.

And even that has changed just recently too.

The new ones are, for the most part, designed NOT to be repairable,

Oh bull****.

and/or parts prices/availability are manipulated
to render them effectively non-economic to repair.

More bull****. I've done just that fine with a modern electric chainsaw.

"This part will (by design) break about 1 year after the warranty runs out -

Not even possible.

let's put in in a monolithic module containing
all the most expensive parts of the machine."

That in spades.

The appliance industry would much rather
sell you a new one than have you fix the old one,

Sure, but what they would rather and what is possible
design wise are two entirely different animals.

and they have taken steps to ensure that only the
maddest of mad hatters will stubbornly stick to repair;

Utterly mindless conspiracy theory.

and when they do, the industry will still
profit mightily due to inflated pricing.

Completely off with the fairys now.

But not making the parts at all will knock even the mad hatters
into line soon enough, so long as they keep all the parts adequately
non-standard that it's not economic for anyone to second-source them.

Thats always been the case with domestic appliances.

The same logic is driving the production of hybrid cars
that are less fuel efficient than some non-hybrid cars.

Nope, that isnt due to any conspiracy, thats just the usual design stupidity.

When the battery pack dies in 8-10 years,
the car will be junk (non-economic to repair),

Another fantasy.

clearing the way for more new car sales.

That happens even when the cars are economic to repair.
Just because new cars are cheap enough to allow that.

Domestic appliances in spades.