this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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It's called planned obsolence, and it is absolutely a common theme in consumer products. It's not exactly new either. We were taught about it in Design & Tech classes here in the UK.
That's not to say general wear and tear in soldered joints and so on doesn't also happen, of course it does. But often, this is seen as a feature, rather than an issue by the manufacturer, and thus becomes a part of the design, rather than something to improve upon.
When we were taught this some 20 years ago, I remember the teacher showing us one of these lemon juicers and pointing out the biggest design flaw was its lack of failure points. The likelihood is, it will last years; ensuring no repeat custom.... Stick a hinge on it like this one, and you've gone from a product that will be handed down a generation; to one that will likely fail after X amount of uses. Companies often test for X too, when designing, And will aim for a window slightly larger than any warranties, in order to protect themselves from having to pay out, but also giving the customer a false sense of security.