If I'd shortened that post even further I wouldn't have gotten across the basics of what I wanted to portray, so much is already missing. In response, I've included additional points here but it barely covers this huge subject. Clearly, these issues are complicated and beyond the scope of any single person to solve alone, all I can do is to paint a brief overview from my perspective. First, I need to explain my position to help fill in the gaps.

I'll begin by using your comment that durable products would be crippling to poor people. Right, this is a crucial issue in any such discussion but I deliberately omitted it, had I done so then I'd have had to have add additional threads to the discussion. Nevertheless, this matter is ingrained in my psyche as I grew up in a comparatively poor family—so when my parents purchased their fridge and washing machine it was a big deal financially. Moreover, when purchased in the 1950s they were much more expensive relative to the average family income than they are today. I recall as a kid my grandmother only having an icebox and she received regular deliveries of ice from the iceman because she couldn't afford a fridge. The same went for laundry, once a week she'd boil the copper over a wood fire to do the washing. Right, durability must be tempered against cost and affordability (more on that monetarily).

The other crucial issue with having more durable, longer-lasting products is that fewer people would be employed, and unless they're found new work then large sections of the population would definitely suffer economic hardship.

Having been taught trades (wood/metalwork) early on I've an understanding of what it's like to work in production-line industries and to get my hands dirty—as they helped finance my way at uni. In fact, I rather enjoy working at a milling machine with swarf flying about as I can actually see I'm achieving something useful unlike much of the deskwork and many useless, time-consuming meetings I've had to attend over the years. As mentioned in past HN posts, I've great respect for craftspeople and skilled workers who work with their hands and I firmly believe that any disruption to production that would disadvantage them without provision of alternative work is completely unacceptable in this modern age.

However, disruption has already happened. If one had to choose a starting point then it began some three, going four, decades ago. If you're familiar with modern numerically controlled (NC) machining workstations then you'll already be familiar with their three outstanding features: consistency and repeatability, speed and accuracy/precision. The introduction of this new automated technology has enabled phenomenal, once undreamt of increases in productivity in recent decades and it shows. We've seen this enormous productivity increase reflected in huge price reductions of many common everyday items. Some will argue the reductions are due to free trade and exploitation of cheap labor in Asian countries, and no doubt in many respects this is very true to various degrees (and it's still a significant problem), but the fact remains that automated machinery is hundreds of times faster than the fastest human worker and day-by-day this automation is getting better (thus it's encroaching still further into areas still performed by humans).

It's why anyone can now buy, say, a flashlight for less than $10 that's been precision machined out of solid or tubular stock, has a properly knurled holding grip that feels comfortable and its batteries are held captive with a cap that screws onto what is essentially a precision thread—a thread that in past generations would have required the skills of an experienced machinist to cut—not to mention that cutting threads by hand is time-consuming work. It's almost jaw-dropping to watch such machines in operation.

In many ways, today's production worker is much better off than in the past. New manufacturing technologies mean that he or she works in a cleaner, safer environment (or ought to), and has learned new skills such as programming the numerical controls that drive said automation. Thus drudgery has given way to less boring skilled work, and where it hasn't then it soon will (at least it'll be so in mass production manufacturing). That said, many serious instances of worker exploitation still exist and they must be eliminated.

Today's operators of NC machines can go whole shifts without so much as a spot of cutting oil getting on their coveralls. Some years ago, I was involved in contract work for reasons too involved to explain which found me working in a Japanese car manufacturing plant and it was so clean that one could almost eat off the floor. The automation and speed of the JIT production, aided by robotic machines, was phenomenal: from rolls of steel sheet in at one end to cars of mixed variety and color (i.e.: made to order) rolling off the production line at the plant's other end then driven directly to awaiting ships only meters away in all of 59 minutes (the deadline being 60). Moreover, all workers were remarkably well trained and exceptionally skilled, and they took pride in their work in ways that I'd never seen in Western countries (incidentally the plant had the best factory canteen I've ever eaten in). Much of production worldwide is now like this and it's becoming more the norm by the day.

In essence, all that sums up to the fact that it's both easy and inexpensive to make very durable goods these days and that the differential cost between making a product durable or second-rate and trashy is minimal. We now have a situation where precision and repeatability are built into the production process by default, these factors are key if we're to make products reliable and more durable. Whether manufacturers choose to use these new processes and techniques for the betterment of their products is a separate issue altogether (and so often it's not the case).

The fact that many, many manufacturers not only deliberately choose to build what essentially amounts to substandard products but also that they go much further—in fact go to quite inordinate lengths—to build in planned obsolescence into their products to deliberately shorten their life is of key importance in this discussion; it's the crux of my argument.

This was brought home to me some years ago when I was working in Europe. I rented a small apartment for nine or so months I was there and it came with a small fridge (large bar size) which had failed to restart and the landlady immediately replaced it with a brand new one of Italian manufacture. As happenstance would have it, almost ten years to the day I was back in the same apartment doing the same work I'd been doing a decade earlier—and you guessed right, that 'new' fridge failed the moment I moved in! To this day, I'm sure the landlady still thinks I jinxed her fridge even though she was well aware that I was employed in high-end engineering work.

That incident led me to investigate how sophisticated planned-obsolescence engineering had become, and I can assure you it's extremely sophisticated. Obviously, products must outlast their warranty period as well as some additional predefined short amount of time that manufacturers have conditioned us customers into accepting before they have to be replaced (by advertising, being seemingly out of date and needing updating, etc.), then they engineer these lifetimes to within quite remarkable accuracy. Even if you're familiar with the Phoebus cartel and great lightbulb conspiracy of 1924 then this article is worth a read: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy. Now, almost 100 years on, manufacturers are even more adept at such conniving skulduggery.

It's worth comparing that fridge with the ten-year life to that of the one my parents bought in the '50s. It was in use for well over 40 years before it was replaced, in fact it never failed nor at any time was the sealed unit re-gassed, rather in the end it too had fallen victim to fashion. The washing machine failed a bit earlier at about 36-37 years and was replaced. In comparison, my own modern washing machine lasted only 11 years (and that's with coaxing as I'd replaced valves and seals in it at about year nine). Whilst I've only given you a small sample here, there's reasonable evidence to indicate the lifespan of whitegoods has dropped to a third of what it was immediately post-war, and that's a conservative estimate. Moreover, it's much more difficult to repair modern machines and appliances for various reasons that are also too detailed to discuss here. Instead, I'd refer you to the John Deere tractor controversy and the Right to Repair movement for details.

Furthermore, the figures are much more alarming for electronic equipment as the mountains of e-waste are almost out of hand, disposing of it is now a serious problem worldwide. I'm well aware of the argument that due to rapidity of the development of computing and IT technology that holding back on purchasing updated equipment is silly idea. Again, this is a complex problem and simple one-line quips will not suffice. Similarly, I cannot discuss the matter thoroughly here as it would fill a book.

I've mentioned a few examples that demonstrate the exploitative behavior of IT/computing manufactures but I've run out of space to post them (I'll provide them later if you're interested).