I need a new washer-dryer, and now I'm scared to buy one. (The one from 2007 seems to eat clothes now... not sure if these things can even be repaired)

Many years ago I came across https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ -- anyone have good stories from recommendations there?

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I generally agree with the premise of this article. Here are my experiences with some things that work and don't fall apart:

- Zojirushi rice cooker and toaster oven. They are more expensive than the typical stuff, but better. I bought a horrible cheap rice cooker at first, and also a toaster oven from Amazon that died after 3-4 months. The Zojirushi ones have a better design and are more sturdy.

- Brompton Folding Bike. It's obvious that they have tested this design under a wide range of conditions -- and importantly have kept it pretty stable for decades, not messing it up for marketing purposes / trends.

I had a Montague Folding Bike prior to this, which had all this "military grade" advertising, and it was a piece of shit. I got stranded in the middle of a ride with an unusable bike because some dinky steel part bent in half. The Brompton parts are solid and well-designed.

Again the Brompton costs more, but it's better. The Brompton bag is very good too.

- Triangle Borea Speakers. I don't know about durability, but they're part of what I see as a small segment of the audio market moving against the trend of audio getting worse since the 70's. This segment seems to have almost zero advertising.

Speakers driven by amps seem to be incredibly niche now, since that everyone has music on their devices. I think these were ~ $600 range and worth every penny. You can easily pay $1000 or even $5000 for something like this, since the audio market is weird.

- Kinesis Freestyle keyboard. I hesitate to include this, because weirdly I had TWO keyboards die right around their warranty time?? But I actually called the company and they repaired the keyboards! (I rarely send anything back) I think that was almost 10 years ago, and I've been using the repaired keyboard since then !!! So in total I've been using these keyboards for over a decade, and I've gotten much more than my money's worth.

- Ikea stuff under $100 can be very well designed and functional. It seems like they know if they're going to sell a zillion copies of something, and they take the time to optimize the design. Flat packing adds a design constraint that encourages creativity.

OTOH, the furniture in the $500-$1000 range is very hit and miss.

- Sharp kitchen knife from Amazon with a sheath. I use the same knife every day now for almost everything... and bought a second one for when I'm away from home. I think it's actually better than knives 20 or 30 years ago, and it was under $20.

- I got a 42" Plasma TV from Amazon in 2007 or so, and used it for 14 years (I still have it, but it's in storage). People who saw it liked the quality more than the LCD TVs they had. I think they stopped making Plasmas for some reason

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Some things that don't work:

- Flash thumb drives from Amazon. I guess I should go pay more at a "local computer shop" ?

- Random toaster ovens from Amazon, rice cookers from target (mentioned above). Actually now I remember that I used the same toaster oven for almost 20 years, and when it came time to replace it, got TWO complete duds from Amazon/Target.

- Air beds from Amazon that develop holes in a matter of months, and one which broke down after a single use. A big waste.