You'd be surprised. If you buy the right quality and maintain things correctly they can last a really long time. A lot of it is a mindset thing but it's also about having the ability to recognise good quality and also being aware when companies are making people buy things they don't need. Obviously people who want the latest thing are going to struggle with hanging onto things as they want the buzz of getting something new. But in truth, a lot of these things simply aren't needed.
Take laptops for instance. We currently run three, bought in 2008, 2011 & 2013. They all run Windows 10 which was a free upgrade and boot up really quickly and perform well. The only expenditure has been a couple of SSD upgrades and an extra 4mb of memory. The latter one came with 16mb of memory but I'll probably put an SSD drive in it at some point. During this time I think some people could have spent £10k plus in replacing and getting the latest models that don't do anything extra for what 95% of people use a laptop for. Especially if you're talking Apple Macs.
The same goes for mobiles as well, but you're probably better changing these sooner than a laptop due to security updates. We have an iPhone 7 plus which is 7 years old and it still performs well. Apple actually provided a new battery because they were caught out using software that degraded the battery on purpose in an attempt to force you to buy a newer model
I recently changed my 2016 google phone to a current model and I can't really tell any difference between them.
We've had our washing machine (Miele) 14 years and our Vacuum (Sebo) longer than than that.
Well at least we agree on some things, to a degree.
Buying quality is often better than buying cheap twice, but the quality does cost more most of the time. The trick is identifying if the additional quality is actually value, and there are laws of diminishing returns etc. But you can also get instances where the better option is cheaper still, like with the electric motor (100 year old tech) which costs less than a comparative engine, but they're far better for most applications. They have far less moving parts, more reliable, far more reactive, more efficient and far less to go wrong. The reason they were not used in moving vehicles prior was because we never had the tech to power them, but now we do. Been on trains for decades, as they effectively move along a grid, and can now go ludicrous speeds at far increased efficiency, and now cars are next. Don't think it will ever suit ships or flights longer than an hour or so, but who knows, tech always gets better and leaves previous tech behind.
Time is money, and sometimes it's worth paying slightly more to make better use of time, as it makes the returns better. Same with comfort and safety, somethings are worth a little extra cost, as you get more back in return. I could drive the same car for 50 years, and it might still work to a degree, but If I miss a meeting and lose a 200k job, then I've saved nothing. Then you get the opposite, like people paying 10x the price to fly 1st class, on a 10 hour flight. If your time isn't worth £500/hr, then the first class flight is probably not worth it, same with people spending a months wages on a business class flight, it's hard to make that make sense.
See, for a PC I couldn't get by with a 2008-2013, processor too slow, bus bandwith less, memory speed slower, processor architecture not making best use of current software which is important with things like CAD or complex calculations, and even things like having a 100 tabs open in chrome (which some do). Same applies to a laptop, my current one weighs <1kg, wasn't that expensive and knocks the socks off anything from 3-5 years ago, so the result is I take it to more places and use it more, to make better use of time. It pays for itself in no time. It's also far quieter and doesn't set my balls on fire.
Apple gear is good quality, but their operating system is where the value is, it's far more stable and secure than windows. I'm not used to it though, so I don't use it for a lap top or computer, but do use iPhones and iPads. You pay more for an apple device, but they hold value more. This enables me to have a new phone and iPad every couple of years for not a lot of money at all, they key is looking after what you will be later selling.
Ultimately it's all about what you want (or have) to spend (total), over the lifetime of the product, and what returns you get from that in quality, quality of life, financial returns, efficiency etc, people value each of those metrics differently and they should by product also. The more I spend on a product/ purchase, for personal use of for my company, the more time I spend drilling down into more and more detail. The more effort I put into it, the more accurate the cost/ value prediction is.
? Feck me. Several hours a day in your car prison? They couldn't pay me enough. I'd top myself before I'd do that.
