When you are young, 2 or 3 years actually seems like a reasonably long length of time. When you are fifty it feels like a couple of weeks, so replacing products that last 2 years feels like you're replacing the damn thing every month.
intersting point. I think one other difference is that as a kid, you don't have much stuff, but if you're old, you have a houseload of stuff you own and maintain, so each failure is a responsibility and an annoyance.