What's taken place, I think, which I suspect was intentionally
forced upon most of us, is that manufacturers wanted to lower
everyone's expectations of quality.

I've been watching this "trend" since the '70s.

My opinion is that we as consumers have brought this on
ourselves with the attitude of: "I don't care if it's
crap, I want it now, I want it cheap and I'll be bored
with it within a year anyway."

Although this isn't entirely new. You could be cheap or
shoddy merchandise for as long as they've been bartering
from stuff. It's just that the ability to mass produce
garbage has exceeded our wildest expectations.

I think that's only half the truth. I was born in 1947, and the rate of
technological change is at least five to ten times what it was 50 years ago.
ICs and SMTs, inserted by robots, make possible the "cheap" electronics that
can be easily discarded to make room for the next quarter's spasm of
improvements.