The one place the hipsters have it right is: for the most part, they don't build them like they used to.
To shed a ray of hope, I had a recent exception to this though. My wife complained about her KitchenAid mixer sounding funny and was convinced it was about to die at 10 years old. I dug around a bit and discovered they are designed with a kevlar gear mixed in with the steel ones. The idea is if you would damage the motor or other gears by putting too much strain on it this gear breaks instead, making it repairable. What a novel concept! Fast forward I have parts ordered, the whole thing taken apart then degreased, and said gear is in perfect shape. After 10 years of fairly heavy use, the funny noise was just the gears clattering a little due to the grease getting old. I regreased then reassembled and it's good as new. This is probably the only kitchen appliance I've owned that's been built in the last 20 years and was repairable.