Originally Posted by
RecceDG
With the exception of anything using a microcontroller (because they were not commonly available yet) almost any home appliance with a motor or heating element was better in the 70s than today, if the measure of "better" is durability and serviceability. Metal castings vice injected molded plastic, assembled with threaded hardware that can be disassembled for service vice one-way "snap tabs" that speed assembly but are next to impossible to take apart without breaking, motors without serviceable bushings, larger gauge wire that was more vibration fatigue resistant....
The engineering trade-off being made here (stuff being "impossible to take apart without breaking") is to reduce the sale price. Things that are easy to repair might (quite likely) have a significantly higher initial purchase prices.
Currently, things are being made have cheap prices with the expectation that they would be replaced rather than fixed. For many things, it's cheaper to replace rather than fix (since the latter requires expensive labor).