That's most of the products being sold today, you think the most for-profit companies sell things and services in order to improve the world? They're selling stuff because they want to make money, if they can make someone addicted + extract wealth from them, then in their world that's a no-brainer.
That's just not true at all. The fruit I buy is designed to make my life worse? The vacuum cleaner? The lawn mower? The workout equipment? The standing desk for my office? The clothing I buy?
* fruit - I can get any fruit anytime in the year, and it seems fine
* vacuum cleaner - my Miele is still running ten years later and still available new
* The lawn mower - the M18 mower cuts great and uses no gas and just works - much better than the previous PoS
* workout equipment - I don't have much here, but my rowing machine is still going strong
* standing desk - the uplift desk seems quite good quality
* clothing - this might be the only one, but even the walmart crap I get is better than the walmart crap from a decade ago
Go to the actual farm in strawberries season next time, get yourself some, and you'll get that. And it's like this with almost every single fruit.
"The proportion of devices which had to be replaced within five years due to a defect rose quite sharply, from 3.5% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2012."
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/obs...
Electronics are more likely to be obsolete for technical reasons, but - for example - modern dishwashers and dryers are far more likely to have cheap plastic parts that fail more quickly. Even for brands with premium price tags.
With clothes, fast fashion is designed down to a budget and up to a price. For consumer brands, the more expensive something is the more disposable it is and the shorter its working life.
https://irispublishers.com/jtsft/fulltext/analysis-of-qualit...