Unfortunately it is easier and more profitable to signal durability than actually engineer it, which is why there are so many companies that use marketing dark

Unfortunately it is easier and more profitable to signal durability than actually engineer it, which is why there are so many companies that use marketing dark arts to trick you into believing a shoddy product is BIFL (buy it for life). There is also the phenomenon of Quality Fade where a hedge fund buys a storied brand, cuts corners but keeps prices high and extracts money from the company as it is running it into the ground. This makes it very hard to assess which products are truly durable, and Quality Fade means even the Lindy Effect is not a reliable heuristic.