About 25 years ago, I was visiting my folks and noticed that mom had thrown away her old toaster - the one she got on her wedding day in 1950, and the only toaster my family ever had.
I asked her why she'd thrown it away, was it not working anymore? No, she said it still worked but she threw it out because it was old.
Well, I rescued it from the garbage can and took it home with me. It still works after 68 years. In the meantime, the toaster mom bought to replace the old one crapped out within a year.
Same deal with her ancient electric can opener. I still use that baby every day. Mom had to buy a succession of crappy can openers after that, but none lasted very long.
Same deal with my old electric clothes dryer. It came with my condo (original to the 1974 building). After a few years of using it, the motor started to fail, so I dragged it to a friend's house to put on the curb for an upcoming neighborhood "dead appliance collection day." Then I bought a new electric dryer. Which was a complete piece of shit and super loud. I took the dryer back to the store, then raced over to my friend's house to rescue my old dryer. Found a repair guy who put in a new motor and I'm still using my 44-year-old dryer today. I have an elderly washing machine, too - I think it's about 35 or 40 years old.
That condo also came with the original water heater which worked just fine, but I wanted to get a larger one, so I called around to price a new one. After reading off the serial number to a plumber - several times - he told me he simply could not believe that my perfectly functioning water heater was actually built in 1964. So it was 36 years old at that point.
You're absolutely correct - they just don't make shit like they used to.
