Does competition lead to a reduction in quality?

I was thinking about the quality of many electrical and electronic goods. With increased competition comes the need to reduce margins and the term “good enough” is almost always used as the acceptance criteria. Add to this planned obsolescence and the ability to ‘fix it later’ with a firmware upgrade and all leads to products with short life cycles that will need disposing of.  Not very environmentally friendly. Still, to compensate just take a look at all those ‘green’ wind turbines. I do hope Miele are not forced down the “good enough” route.

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