I don’t always take stock in old men yelling at clouds when things “aren’t like they were in the old days,” but when it comes to manufacturing quality, there’s something to that sentiment.
Izzie Ramirez over at Vox has a great walkthrough about many of the factors that have contributed to this change in approach and the costs.
There’s also a bit at the end about the right-to-repair and how many corporations fight against that, which, among other things, perpetuates the current manufacturing paradigms. There are groups fighting for the right to repair, however, and just this week there was a significant victory on that front in the U.S.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for other articles about these sorts of trends.