It’s more that the shareholders needed to be appeased, and CEOs realized they could save money by firing people and could make money by making things cheaply. You can hire less-skilled workers if you don’t intend (or care) that your product breaks, which saves money especially if you laid off your highly-skilled workers.
There’s also no incentive to make a long-lasting product in a capitalist system, especially if your product does the thing it’s supposed to _really well_ and does it for a long time. Look at InstaPot - they sold like hot cakes…for a time. It worked great, did what it was supposed to, and lasted long enough that they couldn’t sustain their own successful business model.
A car can last a decade and still run well, it just won’t have the bells and whistles of a newer model. Cookware by and large, and couches, don’t really get this kind of “refresh” outside of surface level details or features people largely shy away from like “Alexa-enabled” ovens.
Out-sourcing comes into play because a company can pay even less for low-quality. I’m sure that if they could keep the jobs domestic and cheap, they would, but those pesky (/s) unions and minimum wages really stifled their innovation.
There’s also no incentive to make a long-lasting product in a capitalist system, especially if your product does the thing it’s supposed to _really well_ and does it for a long time. Look at InstaPot - they sold like hot cakes…for a time. It worked great, did what it was supposed to, and lasted long enough that they couldn’t sustain their own successful business model.
A car can last a decade and still run well, it just won’t have the bells and whistles of a newer model. Cookware by and large, and couches, don’t really get this kind of “refresh” outside of surface level details or features people largely shy away from like “Alexa-enabled” ovens.
Out-sourcing comes into play because a company can pay even less for low-quality. I’m sure that if they could keep the jobs domestic and cheap, they would, but those pesky (/s) unions and minimum wages really stifled their innovation.