we are close to 2022, this shouldn't really be a conspiracy theory anymore
As some have mentioned Lightbulb is one of those prime examples. Where vast majority of LED lightbulb offer say 10 years of warranty, and yet because manufactures know most people dont bother sending them in, they cheap out on quality. Most LED ( if not all LED ) dont fail at all, it is the controller that fails, it is expensive and makes the difference. As long as it last 3-4 years, no one is going to complain. People will attribute this failure to bad luck / QA and just buy another one.
As well as other mention of capacitor. One easiest way is to get have Power Unit fail after 3-5 years, which seems long enough for Consumer Electronics. Most dont go and figure out it was X failure and just buy a new one. Synology J series NAS power unit is an example of this.
Consumer Electronics has been doing this in China for over a decade. There are reason why things are cheaper. And most internet user are still stuck with "Spec" comparison as if spec means everything.
>And you're not even considering that the manufacturer has no idea when the hardware will be sold and therefore doesn't even know the date that the hardware "should" fail.
Electronics get used when they are sold. MTBF since usage in many cases can be extremely predictable.
There is another point to look at it, a lot of consumer actually prefer to have CE fail within reasonable time so they get an excuse to buy something new. The market for some people like me who thinks something should last at least 10 - 20 years is ridiculously tiny. Although the buy for life internet following is certainly helping a bit.