Something happened around the 1990s. For decades product quality had been going up. And all of a sudden things started breaking more regularly than before.
You know it's true from your own lives. Think about cars, for example. Even expensive cars in the 1970s used to break down with high frequency. Membership of car repair associations like the AA and RAC was almost a no brainer. But by the '90s, even cheap cars were increasingly reliable. A quality survey by JD Power in association with AT Kearney showed that the relative reliability of cheap and expensive cars had never been narrower. By God, even Jaguars managed to stay on the road at this time!
What has happened subsequently to the car industry? Well, to put it in a word, electronics has happened. 
Car parts people and car assemblers had mastered mechanics over the course of a century. But, in the space of just a few years, they could not possibly hope to master electronics. Not when a BMW preportedly has over a million possible variations for its onboard computer to calculate. And so cars have become unreliable again. There are many offenders but Mercedes is one of the worst. It slipped from top 3 manufacturer in terms of reliability and now sits out of the top 10, according to consumerist.com.
But the poor product quality that consumers now see comes from many other sources besides:
- poor quality Asian imports
- lower quality control standards (for example, look at the dangerous toys that the USA controllers allowed to be imported in 2008)
- consumers' tacit approval of a disposable society - so long as products are cheap enough
- the increasing importance of brand image over substance
- built in obsolescence
Let's just quickly review the last two.
Brand guru David Taylor reckons that, too often, brand managers put the emphasis on the 'brand 
wrapper' but forget about the product. He's right. And product quality has fallen as a consequence. David uses the example of Abbey, the British bank. They recently changed logos four times in as many years. They would have been better off looking at their product range and avoiding offering mortagages with no down payments. Neatly, David signposts a better direction: "Never mind the sizzle...where's the sausage?"
Built in obsolescence is my particular bug-bear. Why is it that toasters used to last 15 years, microwaves 30 years, and cork screws, forever? Forward wind to the post 1990 era. All of a sudden microwaves breakdown after a handful of years, toasters don't last more than a couple. Meanwhile, ovens and fridges also seem to break with regularity - or need stupid repairs. Either it's the door handle, or the seal or the shelves.
The reason comes down to built in obsolescence. In the Western world, where most consumer electronics are to be found in most households (ie. markets are at or near saturation), how is a manufacturer to sell products, unless they stimulate the replacement market artificially?
All this leads me up to my main point. In the highly fuelled, highly leveraged consumer marketplace of 
recent years, declining quality has been frustrating - but acceptable. Something new breaks? Well you just buy another. Some component part wears out rapidly on your 2 year old blender? Well, just throw it away and get the absolutely newest design instead. BUT, with the recession upon us, this frustration is going to turn to anger. All of a sudden, things have to last because there is no more household budget to replace them. But things have been built to break. And break they will over the next weeks, months and years.
In the future, we will see a consumer backlash against all those suppliers who have put out poor product. This includes some big brand names - Mercedes, Electrolux, HP. I wouldn't want to be sitting in their customer service department at this time. Meanwhile, craftsmanship, quality and reliability will become new watch words. Philippe Starck agrees. He's on record as stating that reliability is the new fashion.
Brand developers, R&D deparments, engineers and designers beware. In tomorrow's post recessionary world, your product quality needs to be much better than today - or risk a consumer boycott of your brands.
