When Built to Last Became Built to Break

Your grandfather’s tools could survive a fall from a roof and still be used to build a shed before lunch. Today, your toaster might not even outlive its warranty. “They just don’t make things like they used to.” You’ve heard this before and probably said it yourself. You’re not imagining it and you’re certainly not alone. So why don’t things last as long as they used to?

This drop in durability isn’t just nostalgia or romanticizing the past. It’s the result of deliberate shifts in materials, design priorities, economic pressures, and cultural values. So, to fully answer that question, we need to take a look under the hood.

Material Quality Ain’t What It Used to Be

The most obvious culprit is in the materials themselves. Vintage products, whether they were appliances, cars, or tools, were often made from thicker steel, solid hardwoods, cast iron, brass, and other overbuilt components. Depending on your perspective, maybe they weren’t “overbuilt” at all. Today’s products? Plastic composites, particle board, thinner metals, and glued joints.

Take an old GE refrigerator from the 1950s. It’s a beast. Many still run today. Modern equivalents are lighter, more efficient, but often toast in about a decade. That’s not by accident.

Cheaper materials mean lower durability, especially under real-world wear. They fatigue faster, warp easier, and snap under stress. They’re also easier to ship and cheaper to make, which makes them perfect for a system focused on volume, not legacy.

Case Study: The 1950s Toaster vs the Modern Pop-Up

Let’s compare two classics. A 1950s Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster used a mechanical system with bi-metallic sensors to toast bread to consistent perfection. These models are still being repaired and resold today by enthusiasts. According to The Atlantic, they were not only more durable but also featured fewer parts prone to failure.

Modern toasters, while lighter and cheaper, often rely on low-cost circuit boards and brittle plastic gearing. One common model reviewed on Amazon has over 1,000 complaints citing “inconsistent toasting” or “broke after six months.” The price might be lower, but so is the lifespan.

To stay competitive, manufacturers cut some corners from the “overbuilt” goods of the past: lighter materials, cheaper components, fewer features, less support. Most buyers don’t notice until something breaks. Here are some of the specific differences between the 1950 Sunbeam T-20, for example, and a modern toaster.

What Vintage Still Gets Right

No, not everything old was perfect. But they were designed differently with different market conditions and different consumer choices. They were made to be repaired, handed down, and fixed with a wrench, not a warranty claim.

Vintage products often included repair guides, exploded-view schematics, and interchangeable parts. Screws instead of glue. Real knobs instead of plastic facades.

This wasn’t because of a sentimental consumer. It was because of a more practical consumer. Longevity was a selling point, and brands built reputations on it.

What Role Does Planned Obsolescence Play?

Planned obsolescence is a known business strategy. It’s the idea of building a product that, in a sense, purposefully has an expiration date. Instead of building a washing machine that lasts 30 years, manufacturers build one that lasts ten. That way, they sell three instead of one.

Planned obsolescence dates back nearly a century. In the 1920s, the Phoebus cartel (a coalition of major lightbulb companies) agreed to limit bulb life to about 1,000 hours to boost sales. (And yes, it’s well documented.)

Modern versions are subtler. Think smartphones with sealed batteries, appliances with proprietary chips, and software updates that stop just a few years in. These aren’t design flaws. They’re designed lifespans. Apple has admitted to it. HP has been sued for it.

But the bulk of the planned obsolescence in today’s products is not something forced on us at all. It’s not all a big conspiracy. In many ways, consumers didn’t merely accept planned obsolescence. We demanded it. Why would a manufacturer make something more expensive and durable when the typical buyer wants something cheap so they can upgrade in the next few years when the newest model is developed? We, as the consumer, practically planned the obsolescence for them.

The Disposable Culture We Helped Create

This one’s on all of us and the choices we make when we buy. Culture shifted toward disposability and speed. Where past generations repaired shoes, stitched shirts, and fixed furniture, we replace with a click. Then throw the old one away. Even if it’s not broken, we want the next one, the new one, the better one.

Fast fashion. Fast tools. Fast furniture. We praise convenience and novelty over longevity. Cobblers have vanished, but next-day delivery is sacred. Not only did we stop repairing things, we stopped expecting them to be repairable. These are legitimate choices to make. But we should understand what we’ve traded.

In a world built on updates, subscriptions, and short-term cycles, long-lasting items feel almost out of place.

Related: Understanding Why We Make Choices

Economic Changes and Their Hidden Costs

On top of the changes in consumer attitudes, we’ve had consistent devaluing of our money for many, many decades. We call this inflation. We often talk about inflation as if it only shows up on price tags. But inflation and the broader economic shifts that are caused by it also shape how things are made. This includes what materials are used, where it comes from, and even who is making it.

Beneath the surface of your “good deal” may be decades of quiet trade-offs leading to shorter lifespans and increased disposability. Inflation affects the math of modern manufacturing in a way that forces the cost side of the equation higher. Manufacturers must account for it on the other side with sacrifices so that consumers will still be willing to buy it.

The Hidden Costs of Mitigating Inflation

Inflation is referred to as a “hidden tax” for a reason. Over decades, it has silently reshaped how companies price and build their products. In 1970, $50 literally bought you more. More material, more labor, more durability. That same $50 today? It has to cover modern shipping costs, costlier materials, and higher overhead, which leads to thinner margins, all while meeting consumer expectations for affordability.

So how do you combat rising prices so that your customers don’t experience the full inflation expense. Quantity and quality. You get less of it or you get something less durable.

For more on how value erodes over time: Asset Depreciation Explained

Supply Chains and the Hidden Cost of Efficiency

The way we build things has changed just as much as the things themselves. Modern supply chains stretch across continents. A power drill might have a motor from one country, plastic casing from another, and assembly occurs in a third. It’s marvelously efficient and wonderfully collaborative. But this can make goods prone to quality variation and compromise.

At every stage, there’s pressure to cut costs. Manufacturers may outsource to lower-bid factories, skip or spend less time and effort on quality control to hit deadlines, or source cheaper components. The final product may look identical to its predecessor but it won’t last as long.

The modern supply chain is a triumph of global logistics. But sometimes, it’s also a graveyard for artistry and craftsmanship.

What Modern Brings to the Table

In the same way that not everything old was perfect, not everything modern is junk. Modernity often comes with technological advancements. Technology can make a vintage product entirely obsolete. We can complain about how cell phones are made. That’s fair. But it’s still a phone that you can take anywhere and use to communicate with anyone around the world. Its signals travel invisibly through the air. That’s a far cry from a single corded phone in the kitchen or one with a rotary dial.

In the supply chain, sacrifices do occur. So do improvements. Some of those help counteract some of the pressures of inflation. Those improvements gave us access to safer alternatives to some materials in older products. Think about the replacements for asbestos or lead. They may have been better at the job we used them for but their unintended consequences outweighed their benefits.

Manufacturing machines got better. Transportation vehicles became faster and more efficient. These types of technological advancements also help to offset the hidden costs of inflation, allow us to trade and source material from all over the globe, and reduce the human toll of dangerous manufacturing conditions. My own great-grandfather died after an accident at Bethlehem Steel in 1936.

You see, all marketplaces are truly games of trade-offs. Something cheap and fast is probably not durable. What’s user-friendly and technologically advanced may not be practically repairable.

Buyer’s Guide: How to Spot Products Built to Last

Now that we know what led to the decline of quality and durability, how can we apply our newfound knowledge? You can still find it in the marketplace if you know what to look for:

• Materials: Favor metal, hardwood, and thick textiles over plastics or particle board.
• Construction: Look for screwed or bolted assembly, not glued or molded parts.
• Serviceability: Can it be repaired or disassembled? Are replacement parts available?
• Reputation: Check product reviews, especially from professionals or long-term users.
• Brand Values: Some companies still lead with quality. Examples: Leatherman, Darn Tough Socks, Duluth Trading Company and many small business artisans all over the world.

A little more money upfront often does save you in the long run.

Built for the World We Built

Things don’t last like they used to because the world doesn’t work the way it used to. The market rewards speed, scale, and low prices. Consumers want fast, cheap, and new. Maybe things aren’t built to last because permanence no longer fits the rhythm of modern life. We change cities, careers, even relationships more often. Our world is optimized for speed, growth, and the next big thing. On top of that, inflation makes it harder to justify premium quality on everyday goods.

But there’s a silver lining. You can still choose quality when it matters. Learn what to look for. Repair what you can. And when you find something that’s built to last, hang on to it.

What’s outlasted your expectations or wears out much faster than you think it should? Let us know below.

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