My old (1990s?) washing machine broke recently. While that's not a great advert for older goods, what happened next was that I took the lid off, had a bit of a poke about, decided that it was probably worth fixing it, and got somebody to fix it for (iirc) about £70 (parts + labour). I haven't been through the same process with a newer machine, but I suspect that's not how it would have played out with a machine from the last few years.
The old white goods we can observe in use today are the ones which still work. Those which broke down are not remembered.