From The Atlantic, an ode to the KitchenAid stand mixer:

This sturdy, elegant device holds a lesson. Pry the mixer open, and you will see that many of the parts are interchangeable. If my mixer stopped spinning, I could clean out the debris on the inside, replace a broken gear, re-grease the machine, and screw the top back on again. If need be, the mixer could be outfitted with a new motor, probably for about $100. It is hard to break and easy to fix, and because it is not laced through with computers or a Wi-Fi chip, it will never reach obsolescence because of a software update.