Planned obsolescence arrived via the washing machine

Our washing machine broke down; the bearing had collapsed. The bearing itself costs 350 lira — online. In the industrial district you’d find it for 200. But when I called a few repair shops, nobody would quote under 8,000.

I meant to replace it myself; the videos showed that getting to the bearing requires cutting open the drum housing and sealing it back perfectly. At my wife’s insistence we gave up and bought a new machine: 30,000 lira.

It bothered me that such a cheap part can take down an entire machine. A simple design change could have made it reasonably repairable. The literature calls this “planned obsolescence”.