ISCARIOT

I've got these two sewing machines, made about 100 years apart. An old treadle machine from around 1920-1930, that I pulled out of the trash on a rainy day, and a new Brother sewing machine from around 2020.

I've always known planned obsolescence was a thing, but I never knew just how insidious it was till I started looking at these two side by side.

I wasn't feeling hopeful at first that I'd actually be able to fix the old one, I found it in the trash at 2 am in a thunderstorm. It was rusty, dusty, soggy, squeaky, missing parts, and 100 years old.

How do you even find specialized parts 100 years later? Well, easily, it turns out. The manufacturers at the time didn't just make parts backwards compatible to be consistent across the years, but also interchangeable across brands! Imagine that today, being able to grab a part from an old iPhone to fix your Android.

Anyway, 6 months into having them both, I can confidently say that my busted up trash machine is far better than my new one, or any consumer-grade sewing machine on the market.

Old Machine Guts

The old machine? Can sew through a pile of leather thicker than my fingers like it's nothing. (it's actually terrifying and I treat it like a power tool - I'll never sew drunk on that thing because I'm genuinely afraid it'd sew through a finger!) At high speeds, it's well balanced and doesn't shake. The parts are all metal, attached by standard flathead screws, designed to be simple and strong, and easily reachable behind large access doors. The tools I need to work on it? A screwdriver and oil. Lost my screwdriver? That's OK, a knife works too.

New Machine Guts

The new machine's skipping stitches now that the plastic parts are starting to wear out. It's always throwing software errors, and it damn near shakes itself apart at top speed. Look at it's innards - I could barely fit a boriscope camera that's about as thick as spaghetti in there let alone my fingers. Very little is attached with standard screws.

And it's infuriating. I'm an engineer - there's no damn reason to make high-wear parts out of plastic. Or put them in places they can't be reached to replace. There's no reason to make your mechanism so unbalanced it's reaching the point of failure before reaching it's own design speed. (Oh yeah there is, it's corporate greed)

100 years, and your standard home sewing machine has gone from a beast of a machine that can be pulled out of the literal waterlogged trash and repaired - to a machine that eats itself if you sew anything but delicate fast-fashion fabrics that are also designed to fall apart in a few years.

Looking for something modern built to the standard that was set 100 years ago? I'd be looking at industrial machines that are going for thousands of dollars... Used on craigslist. I don't even want to know what they'd cost new.

We have the technology and knowledge to manufacture "old" sewing machines still. Hell, even better, sewing machines with the mechanical design quality of the old ones, but with more modern features. It would be so easy - at a technical level to start building things well again. Hell, it's easier to fabricate something sturdy than engineer something to fail at just the right time. (I have half a mind to see if any of my meche friends with machine shops want to help me fabricate an actually good modern machine lol)

By searching around, people have found this forum post from 2007:

I'm a chronic maxi stories writer, we're talking 100k+, 200k+, and on it goes. I post them as WIPs because it's a huge amount of work, and I need the food -- the reaction, the interaction, too. Isn't that why we write fanfiction and not originals? To share the process of creation? To not be left alone to the solitary torture that is writing?

And when people say 'I'll wait for her to finish before I read' and 'I'll wait for her to finish to rec,' tbh, I feel... devalued. Like my work is worthless in its incomplete form. Like I'm not worthy of their time unless I can provide them with a full meal in one go. Like I'm being judged and found wanting.

I know, I know. People do that for their own reasons that have nothing to do with me. But that's what it feels like anyway.

And then they come to consume the completed product, and they be like, 'Good job!' And I be like, '... ... thanks?' When what I'm really thinking is this:

'I'm happy you enjoyed it, it's just that this was a JOURNEY, that you opted out of. You weren't there with me, with US, you weren't sitting in the same boat, fighting off monsters and threatening to lock THE couple in a cave somewhere until they sorted their shit out, you didn't get drunk with us around a campfire, didn't scare yourself to bits with your own ghost pranks. You just stopped by my living room to look at the rocks and pics that we brought back. You're welcome to. I'm happy to have you. Enjoy. It's just -- we could have used an extra pair of hands or an extra set of eyes, and you could have come with and chose not to. No biggie, we've all made it. Just, yeah.'

I'm not talking obviously about the people who only find the story after it's done. That's fair. I myself frequently stumble onto the evidence of such journeys by the time they become cave paintings. Such is life.

Source details and larger version.