This well-written article breaks my heart. I’ve lived long enough to see the arc of companies that design and sell a magnificently successful product, often for many years, delighting their customers while earning a profit. At some point, management decides to “take cost out” of the product by removing the durability and other desirable features that won them customer loyalty and profits in the first place. The result is usually what you can read about here regarding a new model of SpeedQueen washing machines: unhappy customers who miss “the good old days” and stop buying or recommending the product.

Is annoying and driving away a loyal customer base (and check out how horribly SpeedQueen treated this honest dealer!) worth it to get more sales from new customers who don’t care about what made a company great? If short term profit increase is the point, perhaps that answer is “yes”, but the long term damage to the brand might make that short term gain less worthwhile in the end. We don’t know without access to all the financials, but even if it were a successful tactic long-term, I don’t like my dollars being associated with a brand that does this. So for now I guess I won’t be buying a SpeedQueen washer if I need a new washer.

Speed Queen: The Life (and Death) of Internet Commenters’ Favorite Washing Machine