There are companies that went broke by making their product indestructible, a notable example being the maker of the wildly popular Instant Pot. They made a product that just didn't break. This is called planned obsolescence failure and has happened to other companies too.

That being said, making flimsy shit on purpose is shady at best.

Think about all the waste that cheap products create. I can buy a cheap pair of work boots twice a year or a good pair every 2/3 years. I believe it's unethical for preying on the poor while also creating more waste.

Every company does it. It even has a name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

No, it isn't ethical.

Is it ethical for you as a consumer to buy low quality stuff that you know will break?

Companies are not people. They have no ethics. The only thing that keeps them in check is regulation and market forces.

Imagine you went to a football game and bought a serving fries. They come in a little clay-lined paper dish. The clay lining in that dish resists small amounts of oil for about 30 minutes, but after that time is up, the oil will penetrate through, soaking the dish and possibly staining your clothes.

The manufacturer could've used a plastic lining instead. It's more resistant for much longer, and is still food-safe at reasonable temperatures. Is the choice of clay over plastic unethical? Or is it reasonable to pick a cheaper, more recyclable material with the assumption that it won't take most people a full 30 minutes to eat their fries?

Different things have different purposes and need to meet different standards. "Breakable" vs "durable" isn't an objective measurement of quality.

Welcome to end stage capitalism, where the only rule is line go up. Line go up when you use fewer materials. That's why everything is shitty now.

Is it ethical to do something unethical?

No

If everyone built them at the highest quality, then every product would be at the highest price point.

Each reduction in quality makes that product available to more people who couldn't afford it otherwise.

Eventually, the only way to put the product in everybody's hands is to make it so cheap that it only works once, if you're lucky.

no, of course it’s not. but ethics for the worker and consumer do not exist under capitalism. only for the shareholder.

Just engineering something to be garbage for no other reason than so that people will buy more is unethical. That said, there are always trade offs and durability has to be weighed against other priorities.

For example, cars used to have much bigger bumpers which were expected to protect against damage in low speed impacts. Those went away because the requirements changed, the low speed crash test was out, and fuel efficiency requirements were in.

Or there's incandescent bulbs. They were ubiquitous for over a century, and yet they were constantly burning out and changing them was just a fact of life. Manufacturers could have easily made a more robust filament so the bulb would last longer, but doing so would have dramatically decreased the output of the bulb.

Yes, particularly if you're the company creating the "In case of emergency, break glass" boxes.

You should read about planned obsolescence.

I think it's okay to have different levels of quality at different price points so people can have options that fit their budget. A personal anecdote is measuring spoons. When I was young and just starting out, I just bought the cheapest set that would get the job done for a while. They were simply rounded plastic and the markings quickly started to wear off. Years later, when I was a bit more settled down, I decided to splurge on some nice stainless steel spoons in a rectangular shape that lets them fit inside spice jars better.

It really depends on the product Id think. For an extreme example, a packaging company making packaging that does not degrade after a reasonable time contributes to landfill waste in a way that a packaging that eventually breaks down would be less responsible for.

If a product's useful life is limited by some other fundamental reason to the thing simply breaking (I don't mean planned obsolescence here, but more objects only needs for a certain period of time and which customers are almost certain to throw out afterwards), then making the product last longer than needed just turns the extra material needed to get that robustness into extra waste.

If we are talking planned obsolescence, that reasoning flips around to making longer lasting stuff cause less waste obviously, though nothing is truly needed for or able to last forever so there is always going to be a point where making the thing tougher is not going to help the end user any further.

No. A good example is phones. They are intentionally designed to be breakable and difficult to repair. Even ignoring the repairabilty standpoint: the glass backs for wireless charging (a feature that a minority use), not giving consumers a phone case, the lack of innovation for "water proofing" the phone; just using glue everywhere (more annoying to recycle existing phones).

That is unethical. The sheer amount of human life wasted needlessly spent repairing and paying to fix these phones, and polluting the environment is unethical. The default should be more repairable, if not more durable, but no.

Companies are not people. They need people, sure. And it isnt automatically a good thing when they lose. But they are NOT people. 1000s of companies could crumble tommorow with no loss significant loss to anyone. They can find new jobs, create new companies. A company failing because they prioritised the consumer isn't "good", but it isnt "bad" either. However, if a company relies on the pollution of people's time, money, and environment? That is unethical.

I don't believe so.

If every product was made with the highest standards of materials and craft, then all of the products would be more expensive. A competitive free market is meant to allow a wider variety of consumers access to products that suit their individual needs, and price is a huge part of those needs.

I do think it's unethical to charge too much for products that aren't well made and that it's a failing of capitalism that it's not just allowed, but encouraged.