Imagine you went to a football game and bought a serving fries. They come in a little clay-lined paper dish. The clay lining in that dish resists small amounts of oil for about 30 minutes, but after that time is up, the oil will penetrate through, soaking the dish and possibly staining your clothes.

The manufacturer could've used a plastic lining instead. It's more resistant for much longer, and is still food-safe at reasonable temperatures. Is the choice of clay over plastic unethical? Or is it reasonable to pick a cheaper, more recyclable material with the assumption that it won't take most people a full 30 minutes to eat their fries?

Different things have different purposes and need to meet different standards. "Breakable" vs "durable" isn't an objective measurement of quality.

Companies are not people. They have no ethics. The only thing that keeps them in check is regulation and market forces.

it's called engineered obsolescence, a concept driven by German auto industry post 2000 and the reason why they are all in financial trouble today. Specific example: they started using plastic engine parts with plastics that last a set number of heat cycles. They are designed to fail within a set time period. AUDI now uses plastic oil pans that cost as much as steel pan to make. BMWs are catching fire from pressurized fuel systems failing because the plastics are failing. They also move the timing chains to the back of the motor, so that when the chains fails, it will be too much labor to replace and the car is junked.

Tesla uses structural battery packs, so when the pack dies, the car dies. Similar concept to gluing phones together.

I don't believe so.

If every product was made with the highest standards of materials and craft, then all of the products would be more expensive. A competitive free market is meant to allow a wider variety of consumers access to products that suit their individual needs, and price is a huge part of those needs.

I do think it's unethical to charge too much for products that aren't well made and that it's a failing of capitalism that it's not just allowed, but encouraged.

The problem is the price point. You can absolutely get products today that will last decades, but you'll have to pay more for them.

We've become a culture of instant gratification, and most people don't want to budget and save. They want that hit of dopamine right now.

What's unethical is the advertising industry making people believe that buying things makes you happy.

I've been wearing crocs since the beginning, so 20+ years, and I've never yet managed to wear a pair out. The only issue I've had was that the little croc logo button popped off one and was lost. I wrote to the company and they sent me a replacement button, free. I have I think four pairs in various colours; the most recent I got second-hand on Vinted. My sport involves launching and recovering boats in muddy water, so they're perfect summer footwear - hose them down and you're good to go. Also good as house shoes.

FWIW: "In 2025, Crocs revenue stood at $3.3 billion, an increase of 1.5% from the previous year."

It is unethical. If a company made a product so good it went bankrupt, there should be guardrails to ensure the workers and their families be rightfully compensated for their contribution to the better of society.

We're drowning in waste because of this mentality of selling things no matter what.

There should be incentives to make great things, there shouldn't be incentives to be a great stealer.

Is it ethical for them to withhold performance to generate profit? CPUs and GPUs are limited in the range, to a certain large extent, by price discrimination.

This is why God designed knees the way he did. He secretly hates humans and wants us to have an expiration date.

Is it ethical for you as a consumer to buy low quality stuff that you know will break?

Every company does it. It even has a name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

No, it isn't ethical.

There are companies that went broke by making their product indestructible, a notable example being the maker of the wildly popular Instant Pot. They made a product that just didn't break. This is called planned obsolescence failure and has happened to other companies too.

That being said, making flimsy shit on purpose is shady at best.

Yes, for a suitable value of "easily." It doesn't make sense to design every product to be as robust as possible, so there is a trade-off between robustness and other factors like cost and weight. A laptop or phone breaks easily if you drop it, but that doesn't mean the manufacturer is unethical for not making every single one be one of those super-rugged ones with rubber corners. As the ease of breakage increases, and as the cost of making it more robust decreases, so it becomes less and less justifiable to do.

The problem here is really uncertainty and lack of knowledge. If you knew that the product you were buying was going to last for exactly 17 months, you could compare the cost over its lifetime to one which would last exactly 25 months. Then all the underhanded tactics of planned obsolescence would be far less effective. But we don't know that, and really we don't even know the average or likely range.

Think about all the waste that cheap products create. I can buy a cheap pair of work boots twice a year or a good pair every 2/3 years. I believe it's unethical for preying on the poor while also creating more waste.