It's much more likely to be a result of the modern drive for companies to keep growing. This leads to a need to maximize profit endlessly, which in turn leads to cutting corners as much as you think you can get away with, or just ballooning prices. And this problem goes up and down the supply chain, of course - even if you want to run a non-growth business manufacturing quality backpacks, if your suppliers want to run growth businesses, they will eat up your margins and force your hand.

This obsession with ever increasing revenue is a major source of our worse and worse consumer economy.