> The strangely short power cords on electronics.That's lawyers, as well as the insane flagpole of stickers on each wire.
The simple fact of the matter, is that people are willing to buy junk. They want a certain level of functionality, at low prices.
Manufacturers (or software developers) have figured out how to provide a simulacrum of the functionality, for very low prices. These manufacturers put others, that make higher-Quality products, out of business, so you have a race to the bottom.
I spent almost my entire career, at companies that make extremely high-Quality products, and am quite familiar with the requirements to enable this.
It costs a lot; both time, and money. The difference between even a reasonably-high-Quality item, and a very-high-Quality item, in cost to manufacture, is kind of extreme (so their sticker price reflects that). It may seem that companies that make top-Quality stuff are rich, but they are not. The people that make a lot of money, are the ones that can push cheap dross, in large quantities.
That said, people don't actually want low-quality. It's just that they don't want to pay the premium for the higher-Quality stuff. Manufacturers that figure out how to produce higher-Quality, for lower money, and in larger quantity, do well (think many Japanese -and now, Korean, manufacturers).
There's a popular piece of a story, written by Sir Terry, called The Sam Vimes Boots Theory[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory