> Theoretically, landlords would have the same incentive to purchase the longest lasting things for their rental units. In my experience, both as a renter and s

> Theoretically, landlords would have the same incentive to purchase the longest lasting things for their rental units. In my experience, both as a renter and someone who designs buildings, the directive is "get the cheapest possible thing that will work". This is a great example, and it also has many parallels in—e.g. provision of online services. The gp isn't wrong, service-providing companies are incentivised to optimise for low waste in certain areas, but it breaks down in other areas like this because service providers aren't optimising for QoS, they're optimising for perceived value. For example (from the gp's comment): > if I subscribe to a service to keep my food and beverages at a certain temperature, then the company has the incentive to make the fridge last as long as possible. This depends. If the company is doing the above by leasing you a fridge you keep in your house and are responsible for maintaining, they getting you the worst fridge and replacing regularly may be better for them (see also ISP routers). Your statement only holds if they're running a large refrigeration warehouse where you keep your food at all times, in which case the logistics get a bit tricky. The "perceived value" argument gets worse when you have large corporations with multiple offerings outside of their core: here the core competency can lend credence to less optimal/efficient/sustainability-friendly side-offerings.