Was at a diner in Boise and saw a fridge from the 70s still running in the kitchen. The owner said it's never been serviced. | Appliance Repairers - Vivisector
My parents have a fridge from the 80s that's still going strong in their garage. It's a total energy hog but it just won't quit. I tried to get them to replace it with a newer model to save money on their electric bill. They won't do it because they don't believe the new one would last half as long. I see their point, even if it costs more to run. Stuff was just built differently back then.
You're right about the compressors being built like tanks, but there's another side to it. Those old fridges often had way simpler wiring and fewer parts that could break. Like with @shane357's parents' fridge, the thing keeping it alive might be the lack of circuit boards and digital displays. New ones have so many extra features that just give you more points of failure over time. It's not just about the compressor strength, it's about how complicated the whole machine has become. We traded simple and fixable for fancy and disposable.