Products that last decades: the price-per-day ratio that debunks built-in obsolescence

Paying £60 for jeans that last 30 years works out at 0.12 pence a day

A pair of jeans bought in London a decade ago, worn more than 500 times, with twenty years of life still ahead. The maths is simple: £60 divided by 500 wears gives 0.12 pence per day, and the figure keeps dropping with every use. That is the starting point of a discussion that has been collecting objects that refuse to die for years, and that calls into question one of the most repeated ideas in modern consumption: planned obsolescence.

The original argument is straightforward. Against the idea that manufacturers program the death of their products to feed the consumerist spiral, the proposal is to measure the real cost of everything with a simple ratio: price divided by number of days of use. Under that lens, an expensive object that lasts thirty years is cheaper than a cheap one that breaks after two.

The price-per-day ratio that changes your perspective

The ratio proposal is not an accounting whim. It turns every purchase into a measurable investment and exposes what the price tag hides. A 29-inch, 100 Hz Sony TV that still works like day one prevents, irony of ironies, enjoying high definition. A Miele dishwasher and a Suzuki Burgman 400 add up to 21 and 12 years respectively of daily, fault-free operation.

Some argue that planned obsolescence does not really exist, and that what there is instead is plenty of crap bought knowingly. The alternative being defended is buying quality, understood as good materials and good workmanship. Seen through that lens, the problem would not be an industrial conspiracy but a purchasing decision repeated millions of times.

The list of long-lived objects that appears is a catalogue of endurance: an HP49 calculator with 12 years of daily use, a wireless Logitech MX 1000 mouse from 2004 that works like new, a keyboard that has survived several computers and countless games of Street Fighter II, a Samsung microwave from 1994, an 8-bit NES console with twenty years on it.

Cars, bikes and appliances that outlast their owners

The car is another area where longevity is measured in decades. A fuel-injected Nissan Primera 2.0 has racked up 17 years and gone through three different drivers from the same family without a single serious breakdown. A 90-horsepower Seat León TDI adds up a decade with zero failures beyond servicing and tyres. And a Seat Córdoba TDI reaches 401,000 kilometres while still doing 150 a day.

On the mechanical front, Japanese cars have the fruta of lasting a lifetime, although the specific data provided is mostly European. Motorbikes are no slouches either: a Suzuki Burgman 400 with 12 years of daily use shows that wear depends more on maintenance than on the passage of time.

Bicycles deserve a chapter of their own. A Specialized Hard Rock bought more than twenty years ago for around 60,000 pesetas is still rolling after hundreds of kilometres of mountain trails. Another aluminium one turns 14 with 70,000 road kilometres. The technical analysis shared is useful: the chain usually fails at 5,000 kilometres, the sprockets at 10,000, and from there wear accelerates if you don't replace everything at once. A steel or aluminium frame, well cared for, outlives its owner.

Clothes, furniture and inherited objects that survive their owner

Clothing is the easiest place to measure durability. A cotton sweatshirt with 14 winters of use still doesn't pill. A leather jacket from 1983 is approaching three decades. A set of Lacoste polo shirts tops fifteen years. A denim jacket inherited from a brother hits thirty. And a five-euro pair of trousers from a basic brand has survived ten years and countless washes.

Furniture shows up too. Thirty-year-old sofas with a stately look, next to flatpack wardrobes from big-box stores whose doors have already fallen off within a few years. The comparison is not anecdotal: it points to a difference in materials and production processes that the final price does not always reflect.

There are objects that outright outlive their buyer. A stapler made in Spain that has been working for 25 to 30 years and is now used by its owner's daughters. A mountain jacket bought three decades ago in a shop in Bilbao. A cactus that has spent more than thirty years in the same pot, surviving moves and the utter neglect of the person looking after it.

The hidden cost of quality that goes unmeasured

The most ambitious proposal to emerge is an independent quality laboratory that would force manufacturers to publish verifiable results. If someone could guarantee that a garment lasts five times longer, many would happily pay triple. The problem is that today that information does not exist, and consumers choose blindly between one label and another.

The full calculation, with all the objects and their ratios broken down, yields surprising differences. But the conclusion that prevails is less economic than cultural: longevity is built from three ingredients that rarely coincide. Decent materials, regular maintenance and a pinch of luck.

Meanwhile, the list keeps growing. A Dupont lighter that has been lighting cigars non-stop for two years. A Philips fan from the seventies that ran twelve hours a day for twenty-five years. A 1936 Flieger watch. Fishing reels inherited with more than fifty years on them. The question left hanging is not how long things last, but why we stopped expecting them to.