I think this is the real issue. A lot of premium priced stuff today is not built to match the quality the price suggests.

If you did spend $150 on a fan today, it would probably last just as long as a $15 one. Emphasis on probably, there are good quality items... just not a lot.

TVs are a great example: a $900 Sony smart TV I got 5ish years ago lasted barely longer than its 3 year warranty (before a hardware-related bootloop). A crappier cheaper TV would have lasted the same.

Seems to be the trend when introducing smarter software features. Near every appliance I had to replace in the last decade died because of "the motherboard" (according to several technicians), which was coincidentally about 50% the price of the appliance. I guess manufacturers like to cheap out on embedded hardware components?