Our 15 yo coffee maker finally died. We bought Cuisinart's 2012 equivalent.
It sort of works, much as our current toaster sort of works. Like most of the consumer products we buy, it's firmly trapped in the local quality minima of the Akerlof information asymmetric quality trap. The Cuisinart name, like SONY, is just another meaningless brand, another Apple antithesis.
There are manufacturers who've escaped the quality trap; brands like BMW, Mercedes, Apple, and Shimano. It's remarkable how few succeed, however.
The Cuisinart has a signature feature that perfectly represents the quality trap. It signals when the water chamber is empty. This isn't an essential feature, but it's not necessarily worthless. A soft pulsing light would be fine, or a gentle chime. Alas, the signal is four piercing beeps that would be awful in an alarm clock. The cheapest possible signal.
If there were a Hell, and if Steve Jobs were in it, this would be his coffee maker.
