Week in Insights: When the Help You Need Is Just a Click Away

My front-loading washing machine broke this week. We just replaced it a little over two years ago, so we weren’t anxious to rush out and buy a new one. Instead, we did what many homeowners and DIYers do: we turned to YouTube.

Within hours, the top was off the washing machine, and my husband and I were loading clothes into it for a test run. We listened for rattles and matched up frames as the laptop rested on the dryer. Was it the drum? The springs? The shocks?

Fortunately, it wasn’t the drum, which would cost the same to repair ...