Competition does not "take care of the problem". There are counteracting forces that act through competition, and competition is inherently only partially rest

Competition does not "take care of the problem". There are counteracting forces that act through competition, and competition is inherently only partially restorative. It reduces incentives but does not eliminate them. Companies will only abandon early obsolensence to the point that it is profitable, which depends almost only on the customers naivete. Worse, that viewpoint ignores the obvious and numerous counterexamples... Everything from apple (semi-reasonably but certainly in their own interest) killing batteries in older phones to outright conspiracy like the lightbulb mafia. > This is what happened when Honda and Toyota came along as the US carmakers were making very unreliable cars. You will note that US automakers are still some of the least reliable in the world. Its also ridiculous to suggest that japanese cars outcompete because of reliability. It was cost. It was also power, size, and quality. In fact when the civic took off in the US it was still not that reliable. Toyota and honda didnt get their current reputation until the mid 90s.