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This is bit of a chicken-or-the-egg question - which came first, those customer preferences, or advertising insisting you 'need' the stainless steel washer to keep up with the Joneses which created the customer preferences.

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Agreed and your comment reminded me of an old documentary about Edward Bernays the nephew of Sigmund Freud that heavily influences companies around the world in marketing and PR opaganda. [1] The video is black-and-white and long but I would suggest the first hour or so is worth the watch. It makes many cases describing how people are convinced they must buy the thing they don't need.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s [ video ]

It is, but it’s also likely a consequence of increasing disposable income. These appliances are also much cheaper (as a percent of income) than they used to be.

They went from “major purchase that should last a decade” to “we’ll get a new one if this breaks”.

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