You can cry anecdotes all you want, but planned obselesence is a highly observed and we'll documented phenomenon. A very cursory Google search will tell you as much.
I wonder if the reason wages are stagnating is that the "efficiency" is a result of skimming off the top, and removing much of the value added by removing people from the process. Maybe appliances failing as soon as the warranty expires introduces market externalities that someone will dearly pay for some day...
Or maybe we are paying for it today! Have you ever heard of the [broken window fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)? Basically, someone may claim that breaking windows increases spending on window repairs, which is a net benefit to the economy. This, of course, ignores what could have been bought had the window not been broken to begin with.
I don't really believe in planned obsolescence if it isn't enforced by electronics. In the 20th century it was common to use metal for things that we use plastics nowadays. Metal is expensive but lasts longer, plastic is cheap but it breaks easily. If you want to provide a cheap product then metal is out of the question. The end result is that we have too many crappy products but that doesn't mean they have been engineered to fail.
I wonder if the reason wages are stagnating is that the "efficiency" is a result of skimming off the top, and removing much of the value added by removing people from the process. Maybe appliances failing as soon as the warranty expires introduces market externalities that someone will dearly pay for some day...
Or maybe we are paying for it today! Have you ever heard of the [broken window fallacy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)? Basically, someone may claim that breaking windows increases spending on window repairs, which is a net benefit to the economy. This, of course, ignores what could have been bought had the window not been broken to begin with.