- degrades faster, necessitating replacement
- makes the average quality of all wood furniture notably worse
- arguably made the cost of real wood furniture more expensive, since fewer people can make a living off it.
Not to say the tradeoffs are or are not worth it, but "80% of the real thing" does not exist in a vacuum, it kinda lowers the quality on the whole imo.
- There are 8 billion people on the planet now and there isn't enough high quality furniture quality wood to make stuff for all of them.
Up until the time of industrialization there just wasn't that much furniture per person in comparison to what we have now.
The reason 'real' wood furniture is more expensive is not that there isn't demand or artisans creating it, there are likely more than ever. Go buy hardwood without knots and see how much the materials alone set you back.
The trade off isn't 'really good furniture' vs 'kinda suck furniture'. It's 'really good furniture' vs 'no furniture at all'.
It will cost more, sure, but that keeps people from just throwing it out; they sell it instead of throwing it out. The amortized cost is probably similar or even better, but less wasteful.
it's disposable plates vs dishwasher ones, but particle board vs actual furniture
I’m sympathetic to the viewpoint that the supply particleboard furniture has suffocated the marketplaces for mid- and low-end wooden furniture. Such pieces definitely exist affordably (I’ve bought them at places like Marshall’s, for instance). But they seem comparatively underrepresented in the market.
Maybe a consumer preference for flatpack furniture is enough to explain this? But then again, wooden furniture can be flatpacked too—ikea has plenty of it.
That's why it's "80% of the real thing" and not "100% of the real thing".