If you go to the Lowes web site (www.lowes.com) next day delivery has a caveat.  It is only available for in-stock major appliances.  So what are the chances that the appliance you decide to purchase is in stock?  Do not know that answer but in the past six months my wife and I had to replace the washer and dryer (the motor in the washer burned) at home.  Purchase them at Lowes.  Lowes did not have the appliances in stock (what a surprise) so it took several (not next day) days between the purchase and delivery.  Lowes does not hook up gas appliances.  They are able to plug in a cord to a standard electrical outlet.  That appears to be the extent of free hookup.

A few months later our refrigerator was making noise.  My wife wanted to find out how much a replacement unit would cost.  We stopped by Lowes and went through a similar process with a sales representative.  Once again the delivery would be several days after the purchase.  We decided not to replace a new refrigerator at the time.

Not sure how Lowes and for that matter most other major appliance stores (i.e., Home Depot, Sears, etc) can get away deceiving potential customers as they do.  I guess that is the way to do business in America.  Naïve Americans get excited with the models at the showroom and tend to ignore the false promises that led them in the first place to stop by a store searching for a new appliance.

Home appliances used to last decades.  Today they are manufactured to last a few years.  The reason for this is that manufacturers (most of them in China) design appliances to break in a short period of time so they can sell Naïve Americans a replacement in a very short period of time.  Companies have quality assurance departments that work in conjunction with designers to test the life of different parts and estimate how long should they last.  The game is to make sure all parts last for a minimum time so the Naïve American is led to believe that a quality product has been purchased but appliances start breaking down after a few years hinting the owner that it is time to replace the unit (standard tear and wear we are told).

I guess that is the American way.  We live in a consumer society.  Products should not last too long.  They need to be constantly replaced.  I have observed this phenomenon with different coffee makers in the past five to six years.  I brew every day two cups of coffee.  Coffee machines from different companies (so far all are manufactured in China) do not last more than a couple years.  In my opinion a coffee maker, with proper care, should last at least ten years.  I as a consumer would like to decide on a newer and fancier model when I am ready to purchase it, not after a couple years (if lucky) when the unit breaks down.

This brings me to an interesting point.  Hardware designers are able to design products that break after a period of time forcing the Naïve American to purchase a new one.  What about software?  Well-designed software does not break.  It just works.  The only hope for well-designed software is that with time, the requirements of the user or the specific industry (e.g., automotive, medical, etc) change enough so a new version of the software must be considered.  This might not be as reasonable as one might imagine.  Software manufactures are constantly adding bells and whistles to their software products in order to lure new buyers, but the majority of users tend to use the same set of features version after version.  You know what I mean if you use a word processor package (e.g., Microsoft Word).  I have been using Word for about twenty years and probably use one to two percent of the current features.  With time I have purchased newer versions of Word because older versions do not work on newer versions of the Windows operating system.  Perhaps having a monopoly is the American way.

So what should software manufactures in our consumer society do to get recurrent revenue?  Adding feature just for the fun of it does not appear to be a feasible option.  Developing high quality software does not appear to be a good business.  Would like to hear your comments opinions on this issue.