When people say "designed to be disposable" they don't mean reuse is not possible - just not likely, because a thing wears out quickly, or is a hassle to give someone else. Former means there's not much of a second-hand market, the latter means that even giving away for free is too much work compared to just dumping it.

I'm very much surprised about the amount of comments here on HN (today and in many previous discussions) that claim to reuse IKEA furniture; it's completely contrary to my experience. My opinion of IKEA furniture is that it's single-assembly - trying to break it apart irreparably destroys it.

I conclude there must be either high variance in IKEA's production quality, or we're comparing apples to oranges. Maybe some IKEA products have more reassembly potential than others. Someone mentioned an office chair elsewhere in the thread - yeah, that obviously can last years and be moved, because it's made of metal and hard plastics. But most IKEA furniture I experienced is made of dried toilet paper glued with formaldehyde^W^W^W^W^W^Wmedium-density fibreboard and assembles destructively.