“This washing machine will last 20 years” … said no one ever.
This is a 3-part series on the state of home appliance products and our generation’s experience with it. In part one I debate on how we Millenials experience these products and how weird it is for us to own and use them. In part two I demonstrate the reasons why white goods are produced and sold this way. In part three I focus on a possible service-centric solution, basically “what if you would rent that machine” instead of owning it.
Part I: The millenial’s pain
In this first part, I open up a debate about the user, customer. The sad story about how the home appliances — the white goods — became a category of retarded and misunderstood broken devices rather than the pinnacle of technology; a symbol of the more the merrier boomer’s lifestyle rather than of meaningful modern living, the skeleton of old school religion of owning rather than a thing to tell friends about and the case for failed ecology rather than a working green solution.
All of this is based on my observation of how people behave around these devices, my personal shopping experience (in little Slovenia, EU) and the endless painful stories of people around me. It comes with a grain of healthy sarcasm included to keep these sided conclusions at least interesting while they might border to wrong.
We don’t care about them
So, does the following sound familiar to you:
- You want to wash your clothes, they are mostly sweaty stinky, some a bit dirty, and they are mostly cheap HM or Zara low-quality cotton fabric that will deteriorate in 2 years — but you don’t care, because they were cheap.
- You have this washing machine that has a number of washing programs. You use one or two of them ’cause they do their job, and have no idea why the other 3/4 of the functions do.
- Sometimes clothes come out dirty/stinky/wet/streaky … but all you do is just: redo the washing & tell your friends about the weird thing.
- Your machine begins to misbehave. It leaks, it emits strange noises and clothes stink. However you keep on using it; because you know that finding the right service and being home at request would be hard and it would probably be expensive — but you don’t even have a clue.
No? Not familiar? Ok, how about that vacuum cleaner story about how you can’t find time for bags? The fridge buzzes your nerves out every 5 minutes it turns on? Oh, you still keep that broken blender that cost a fortune and you’ve misplaced the cup? The tumble drier you don’t even use, because it shrinks your stuff, but it does take 1 cubic meter of space in your crowed bathroom? The list goes on.
The experience we have with owning white goods pretty much sucks.
Much more than your broken vacuum cleaner for sure. The story with the washing machine is just one and we each have plenty. And it is also just the beginning of a saga of failed experiences with white goods — purchasing, owning and fixing the machines we don’t care of as much as our parents did and as much as manufacturers think we should. It is interesting to put these products into a context of how our generation, the millenials perceive this category of products much differently compared to their creators — baby boomers. And it is not as entertaining to peek behind our consumerist society’s constant drive towards buying more, throwing stuff away and not caring about the impact on the environment.
We don’t know how to use them
Do you know anyone who can use a washing machine without a user manual? Do you know anyone who actually knows, truly understands and uses more than just a couple of features on their washing machine? Can you imagine a person using a whichever app on their iPhone while reading its user manual? I bet you don’t, because you can’t. We have become used to interfaces that work without the need to explain them, while home appliances stay a showcase of bad usability.
It’s not just that men can’t use washing machines. It is that hardly anyone understands how they work and how to really operate them.
While appliance interfaces have shown some progress through digitalisation of components and the introduction of LCD displays, manufacturers have not stopped introducing more and more features that users are not able to use.
Even though we still tend to fall victims to our own greed when it comes to more features, we drastically change our minds when we actually begin to use the product. We primarily want simple and beautiful machines that do simple things reliably. The jist of our generation is not in owning the features, but in sharing experiences with them.
We don’t want more choice
As millenials, we are increasingly overwhelmed by the overwhelming offer on the market. Buying a simple washing machine seems similarly complex to buying a space shuttle, even though the device serves one relatively simple purpose: to wash clothes.
Furthermore, every single appliance purchase process seems equally complex: tumble dryers, dishwashers, mixers, toasters, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, TVs, humidifiers, irons … And we absolutely have to do the whole market research for each and every device we buy, because it is a thing that will sit on our countertop or in our bathroom for years and because product range is incrisingly wide and … because choice.
With Internet as the infinite source of product information it seems we could make the most optimally informed decision … but we know this is an endless loophole — the more information we get, the choice becomes only marginally easier, while the frustration gets worse.
And then the market changes daily to compensate for our endless hunger for more information and supposed hunger for more features. Manufacturers come up with new products, lines, brands … it seems impossible to decide. Yet we have to, says Adele:
I knew it was decision time when an exasperated friend declared at a dinner, “Enough with the washing machine talk!” You’re probably thinking the same thing. So we bought a front loader, an old model German machine on special, on the advice of a washing machine repairman who does nothing but repair washing machines. You should hear his stories.
Because choice. But more choice often results in no choice rather than any. Millenials generation, we are specially affected by this choice paralysis and thus value simple, user-centered, experience driven products — actually not products at all, but rather meaningful services. Our lives have become so complex and fast that we can’t afford choosing everything optimally, even though we’d theoretically like to. Eventually we rather succumb to big global monopolies that offer one Apple from the Eden, rather to live constantly choice-paralysed.
We don’t want to own, but to NOWn.
We are not that moved by the ownership of stuff anymore. More than ever are we willing to share and experience rather to own:
- Uber & ZipCar, who let us use but without owning them.
- Spotify & Netflix let us consume media without owning them.
- Airbnb, that lets us rent&lend apartments without owning them.
- Internet providers, who let us use set-top boxes without owning them.
- Printing service providers, who let us use printers without owning them.
More and more consumer trends seem to go towards experiences, rather than consumerist product ownership. We value access, not ownership.
The NOwnership trend holds especially true for products that don’t enable us to do something important/meaningful, enables or strengthens our social ties or says something about us — definitely not a washing machine or a meat slicer. While one might be attached deeply to their iPhone or ’99 BMW, it is rather easy to let go of a cheaply-looking toaster made in China bought in BestBuy.
We don’t want to get killed by our own planet
It isn’t a fad, not even a discourse any more. We have to change the way we treat our planet, radically. Yesterday. We have to stop(!) producing(!!) meaningless(!!!) stuff (offshored to China) and consume more valuable, meaningful, low impact products and services. We must buy & consume less, and reuse & recycle more. We must produce more efficiently, rely less on fossil fuels, drastically lower the consumption and begin to be renewables-powered and distributed on as low scales as individual homes, individual products.
Millenials (age 21–34) appear more responsive to sustainability actions.
Consumers on western markets began to buy more efficient, eco-friendly, low impact devices.
Ecological taxes are getting higher than ever — from production, to device purchase and use — each phase of usage is getting more taxed the less efficient we are.
From 2006 to 2013, the total environmental tax revenue in the EU increased by 1.6 % per year (at current prices) on average.
Labelling appliances shipped from China with EU stickers is not only uninformative and lame, but it is rather a symbol of the very few **cks given about the problem. Is it really an environmental and economical claim to save a few litres of water per wash compared to the waste produced by discarding the old one and producing a new one? Yes, investment in a green device certainly makes sense, but only when you buy it for a long time, not for 5 years of maximum warranted life of a modern machine.
We all know we will need to radically change our ways of consumption and production. It is a fact that as millenials we care about this problem much MUCH more than people that invented established business models.
In order to really get green, MFGs need to transform drastically, showcase greenness from within — through company culture, production, supply chain, design and business models. I guarantee that we will truly appreciate this in the near future, as well as when the Earth finally clearly states it: “I told you, but you wouldn’t listen”.
Conclusion
So what is going on, you are asking? What are the reasons behind the current state of the industry? What has (not) changed regarding the (dis)belief in brands that we just end up buying discounted available stuff rather than investing time in choosing wisely like our parents would want us to? Why are machines so full of features we don’t want and why aren’t manufacturers transparent about what they trying to sell to us? How could we get more experience-centric rather than ownership-centric when it comes to white goods?
