I'm on board with half of this claim. The failure-due-to-defect rates actually are rising, according to systematic studies of home appliances. But the cost decline might actually compensate for that, at least in consumer terms. If you cut costs on the most over-engineered parts of your product, you can often create a less-reliable device that's still more cost-efficient. Of course, whether you pass those savings to consumers is a second question.

https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/25...