Reduction in material quality, craftsmanship, and of course, labor rates has super-charged almost all durable goods – making them readily available and extremely affordable. As a result, we’ve grown out of the smaller disposable items like diapers and napkins into larger products like toasters and microwaves.
Hard to believe for $10 you can buy a toaster. For that small cost, it’s not “worth” the time to fix a broken one and instead we default to buying new, allowing the product to become disposable. Once that happens it’s near impossible to realize the product’s full potential. We’re constantly replacing the item before we squeeze out all of its usefulness.