Ask Lemmy

The Oatmeal is correct, the answer is printers

And by extension, scanners

It used to be printers but I switched to a Brother laser printer about five years ago and its been trouble free while having reasonable print costs. You can even force it to print on empty for a bit longer, although you shouldn't push any laser printer too far on empty as you can wreck them.

Toasters are my big gripe. Its been proven that they have massively reduced costs at the expense of longevity and toasting efficiency from what we had decades ago. I have an expensive toaster (from Sage), and I have still had to replace micro switches on the buttons. While it does a better job of even browning than a cheap toaster its still far from the level I expect.

I would buy one of those expensive Japanese toasters or a commercial toaster oven but I do not want that much counter top taken up by it. I would rather just cook my toast in a cast iron pan now, far better finish.

Washing machines.

My washing machine 15 years ago would wash my clothes with...uhhhh...fucking water.

Now you can't buy washing machines that actually wash your clothes in water. They all spritz your clothes with a little water then jiggle around your damp clothes for a bit.

I don't live in a desert. I live in a place with access to plenty of water. I should be allowed to buy a washing machine that actually fills up with soapy water and washes my damn clothes.

I could buy a Speed Queen washer for $2,000 from a specialty store, but that's ridiculous. Why can't I just buy a washing machine that washes my clothes? They're ALL terrible now. All the washers in all the big box stores are just...bad.

Do printers count? I fucking HATE printers.

"Smart" TVs.

I just want my TV to show pretty pictures with sound thrown at it by the digital receiver. If I want, I can attach a computer for streaming. How is that such a big ask?!

Printers. There is no excuse for (consumer) printers to be as shitty as they are.

There are reasons, but none of them are excuses: If patent hell wasn't a main obstacle put in place by the large printer manufacturers, I am sure open source hardware alternative would've forced industry improvements ages ago.

Both Costco and Sam's club make these ice cream makers in the wooden buckets. The motors have flimsy PET plastic gears. I get it. Strip out a replaceable gear rather than burn out the wires in a motor, easy easier repair, right? Wrong, I have a nearly identical ice cream maker that's 60 years old, the motor still works great. Metal gears, just gotta oil and maintain it regularly because it gets near salt water and gets splashed occasionally over the decades. The new ones strip out the damn gears after two batches of ice cream.

My solution ended up being to get an ice cream maker with built in refrigerant, but then I needed to get it recharged and that'll cost a much as the machine itself. Thanks a ton, breville. I'm saving up for a professional machine now.

Microwaves are allowed one proud "ding" or three "beep" before they are on my hate-list.

I really don't get all the shit microwaves and printers get. smart devices especially samsung and xiaomi phones are the worst, from privacy, ownership and control, and maintainability points

edit: fixed a typo. got a stroke when writing...

The fridge. If you close it too hard or too soft, it ends up not closed, but a fingers' width open.

Dishwashers

Modern ones have too many features that can break and brick the whole thing and the cheap ones never get good powerful pumps so they spray like shit. Just make a basic mechanical timed dishwasher with a super powerful pump and I will be all in.

If it needs an app or internet connectivity - it can go fuck itself.

We've gone nearly a century of appliances that didn't need this shit. Apps or the Internet itself will not and never will, make things easier to do tasks than they already were easier to do before.

My apartment gym has a Nordictrack treadmill that I hate nearly every aspect of. First of all, it requires you login to use any of the programs, which doesn't really work with 200 potential users. It has lost internet every single time I've used it and needs a restart, even though I use manual mode, the UI buttons are tiny and impossible to read while you're running, and don't respond correctly, and worst of all, there's no goddamn place to put your phone so you can watch Netflix.

I encountered a gas stove that wouldn't work during a power outage. It had a valve that shut off the gas if electricity wasn't present. Way to intentionally sabotage one of your biggest advantages.