I have a ten year old Samsung washer. It started leaking badly a couple years ago. I opened it up and replaced one small rubber tube for $5. If I had to pay someone $500 to fix it, I'd have been better off buying a whole new appliance. I won't be surprised if this is the only repair I have to do for many more years.
I suspect this is actually what's changed - labor is so expensive compared to the cost of the machine that people replace their appliance with a new one because it's only a little more than fixing their old one. And when they replace, they tend to think of the old brand as bad, and look for a new brand.
So everyone has negative stories about their appliances across just about every brand, except Speed Queen because those are so expensive, you'll actually pay a repair person to fix it instead of replacing it. It's like how some sports car brands are notoriously high maintenance, but what Ferrari owner cares about maintenance costs?
Decades ago the relative cost of a washer or dryer was much higher compared to repair labor. You'd pay the Maytag man to come fix your dryer if it had a problem.