Well, maybe. How does one judge the quality of a company's products? By one unit? In the past there were reliable brands. Today, no matter what I buy, my chances are quite good of getting a lemon. Even Toyota has recalls.
I bought a Logitech mouse that was dead on arrival. I returned it for the same model, and it lasted four days. The third was a keeper, but I decided there was something wrong with that model, so I bought a gaming mouse as a spare on the assumption that gaming mice are sturdier. That seems to be the case.
It used to be that if you spent more money, you knew you were getting higher quality, but that's not true anymore. So despite all the research I do whenever I buy something, and I do a lot of research, I mean a lot over a long period of time, I know that today's products are inferior and will be either dead on arrival or require some degree of constant maintenance and troubleshooting. The need for DIY is returning. The need for independence is increasing. Too bad they didn't teach home repair in school. A handy person can save a lot of money and frustration and, perhaps, time.
I bought a Bosch dishwasher, a German brand built in North Carolina. At the time, most of the reviews were positive. But in the first year I had to call the repairman twice, and the repairman admitted that he didn't even own a dishwasher anymore. The Bosch requires regular maintenance, or what I call babying. It doesn't fit my plates very well. The Germans use smaller plates. They also use less water. I had to switch soap because only a certain kind got the job done, in tablet form, in addition to using Rinse Aid. It's quiet, but it doesn't always get the job done. If you google dishwashers, you'll see the complaints, the changes made several years ago and the consequences, starting with the government telling us what soap we could no longer use. Companies have scrambled ever since to make a dishwasher that worked.
My folks had appliances that lasted for decades. Those days are over. Those companies are gone. Steve Jobs wanted the computer to be an appliance. I wonder if he meant a reliable appliance or a disposable appliance, but he probably didn't think about it. Silicon Valley has really been loading up our landfills with junk.
My attention was caught by the ergonomic keyboards at
http://www.allthingsergo.com/, particularly the split keyboards, such as the ones by Kinesis.
