It’s easy to look at an old and faithful washing machine, decades old, still chugging along and cleaning clothes and feel nostalgic over the way things used to be. Washing machines were built to last, and men took pride in their work, right?

The same goes for seeing an old house, steady as ever, standing strong providing a home over so many years. Why can’t houses be built like this today?

I think houses and washing machines are built like this today, but only a small portion of them. I think survivorship bias has often led my mind astray, and we have forgotten all the homes built, at the very same time, that did NOT stay standing. Most of the washing machines from that time have failed, were junked, and are no longer remembered.

It was the best built homes of that time that still remain standing. More old homes than we can count have been lost to fires, insects, and water damage, and it was only the strongest of the group that remain with us today. We have forgotten the fly-by-night companies, the short termers, the cheaply made appliances and homes.

I was asking my wife last month “why is every single snow sled made so cheap today?”. They may only last a literal hour of use before breaking down. I thought to myself “sleds used to be more durable”.

We went sledding with the kids recently, and a neighbor family had a durable thick plastic sled. It was solid thick HDPE and even when teens were using it, it showed little sign of deformation. They have had it for a couple years now, and even pull it with the quad, and it has held up quite well.

I looked up that sled online and they are priced around $75 – $100. They are 20x the price of the cheap sleds from Walmart. So I realize the problem lies with me, not with the manufacturers. If I want a washer that will run for decades, or a sled that outlasts a childhood, I have to be willing to find them and pay for them.