I can't recall, but I think it was about 7 years. Some will say that's an acceptable lifetime, but I think I did the math once, and estimated it was only a little less than laundromat pricing (less opportunity cost).
I beg to differ that Samsung makes good stuff. We had a Samsung front-loading washer. The drum and the crank that holds the drum were made of two different materials, and in the presence of the water and detergent, a galvanic reaction occurred, dissolving the drum arm. Replacing the arm was $400 in parts and over 8 hours in repair time. (There's lots of YT videos of this exact repair.)
What kind of monkey designs something like that. It's obsolescence by design.
I bought a Prusa MK3s during lockdown (don't think I'll do the upgrade to the +, doesn't seem much changed), it is amazing. I've never owned a 3D printer before, and it was painless to put together, took about 1 hour to tune and fix one assembly glitch. It's sitting right next to me printing right now.
The other thing I bought myself was an M1 mac. I just got frustrated with cleaning my butterfly keyboard again, and just said, "fuck it, I'm buying one". It is an amazing machine. Battery for days, nice, light. It's probably my favorite computer ever (well, after my first – an Apple //e).
No. Apple needs large teams doing complicated or deeply technical things. That's their market. They're in consumer electronics. If it takes 50 people to ship 100M units, then it takes 50 people.
My neighbor bought a set of woodworking clamps from Amazon. When the ~25lb. box arrived, the driver threw them up onto his porch (his house is quite raised from the street), and he has video of it damaging his siding as it took three attempts for the driver to get them over the railing onto his porch. When he contacted Amazon, they said to contact some insurance company they had. When my neighbor called the insurance company, they never returned the call.
He proceeded to begin researching the insurance company, which was owned by Amazon, but wasn't listed as a valid insurance company in Massachusetts. He contacted Amazon again, and said, "would you like me to call the insurance commissioner and attorney general that you're operating a non-registered insurance company in Massachusetts." Someone was out to fix his siding in 3 days, and they painted the porch as well (due to some paint matching problem).
Despite how much I love being able to order stuff, and not have to go out, Amazon is pretty scum-tacular.