Shit gets mass produced cheaply not because there’s some secret conspiracy to make everything worse, but because consumers care about price above all else.

I mean, this video itself has some counterexamples. Apple does not spend $700 to add wheels to a case, it’s just a famous luxury brand that can impose an insane markup and still attract buyers. John Deer does not need to add software and contracts to their machines to lock users out where they could otherwise easily do repairs.

You can buy alternatives (they mentioned the market in vintage tractors), but for whatever reason, be it consumer stupidity or anticompetitive practices, it doesn’t happen. What we need, and what’s coming in still-functional democracies, is regulation to prevent this stuff.

Of course this only applies partially to housing. Houses are a lot bigger than they used to be, but people “investing” into property have driven up prices in and around cities to ridiculous numbers.

I have yet to see actual numbers on this, and at least in my country’s case it’s turned out to just be a physical shortage of housing. So, I’m going to take the more free market standpoint on this one, opposite to the last.