While certainly some high quality expensive products focus on weight reduction (e.g. carbon fiber in camera tripods or hiking gear), many customers still have a subconscious association between weight an quality. After you’ve removed all the unnecessary parts or features and really optimized high volume manufacturing, at some point product cost is highly associated with part weight. More material costs more money. If a designer or manufacturer goes too far optimizing for cost by removing material, the product is more likely to be damaged under normal use or misuse.
Even if many consumers can’t tell you directly that something feels cheap to them or why, they are subconsciously aware of it. There’s a classic story from the history of industrial design where in the development of a desk clock, the designer, Henry Dreyfus observed consumers in a store evaluating competitive models of clocks. They picked them up and sensed the weight. By adding mass the product became much more successful. [1]
In the course of my work as a product engineer, I’ve designed many docks and stands for devices, and torn down competitive products. These kinds of things often have added weight in the form of stamped steel plates or die cast zinc. The weight helps keep the dock stable so it doesn’t tip when the user puts in the device, and it also adds to the feeling of quality and security.
[1] “In 1939, he designed the Big Ben Alarm clock for Westclock. After a year of development, it was ready to market. The first customer was the John Wanamaker department store in New York City. Henry Dreyfus, in what is considered to be the first live ‘user testing,’ observed potential customers pick up the clock, examine it and put it down without buying it or asking any questions. Eventually, he questioned customers. Why were they putting it down after examining it? What was wrong?
Their response: it felt too light. Something so light couldn’t be substantive. Whether they were right or wrong, Dreyfus realized that people were associating weight with value even though he knew there was no connection. In a radical departure from the notion that ‘less is more,’ he added a 3 oz. weight, serving no function whatsoever, but to create the perception of greater substance. In this case, more weight equated to more value. He said, ‘people want the experience of knowing that their alarm clock had something inside.’ Weight was an attribute that had meaning and relevance… it created a cue that led to a perception of value and substance.”
From https://drozmarketing.com/designers-role/