At one level down, this is a fundamental problem with Capitalism itself. It expects companies to grow forever, and thus they have to come up with ways to reduc

At one level down, this is a fundamental problem with Capitalism itself. It expects companies to grow forever, and thus they have to come up with ways to reduce the working life of stuff they make. Imagine if we made furniture with mostly good, strong metal. They would last lifetimes, but Ikea, as a company would probably stagnate after a while. I shop a lot at Ikea too, but usually take care to purchase their stuff that's made with metal. They make a lot of those and those are very durable, if not a bit costly (in India)