Of course it was sold - by the means you mentioned, but also, those profits were then quickly deployed into decades long marketing strategies - which has led to

Of course it was sold - by the means you mentioned, but also, those profits were then quickly deployed into decades long marketing strategies - which has led to a world addicted to low quality, cheap goods - an addiction we cannot be weaned off of. So much so, as the article laments, we can't even make a wrench.