[jl6]

One thought that we should not neglect to provoke is that we manufacture things “badly” by choice, in order to reduce cost, in order to make products accessible to more people. Sometimes that sucks and costs more in the long run, but sometimes it’s a rational choice not to overbuild something.

We absolutely could still make a fancy gauntlet that stood a good chance of lasting 700 years, but it would cost enough that only today’s wealthy knights would want to buy it.

[vkou]

And sometimes we manufacture things badly by design, in order to create planned obsolescence, and more revenue in the long term.

[macspoofing]

>in order to create planned obsolescence, a

Planned Obsolescence is an urban myth - there may be some examples, and if there are that's a tiny slice of the market. The reality is what OP said, price and quality are tradeoffs. Manufacturing things that can last 100+ years of wear and tear means those things would be costly, with very limited use cases.