You seem to have... very unusual experience with zippers. I honestly can't remember the last time I had trouble with one or ever having any serious trouble with one.
With respect, I think it's your experience that is very unusual. I reckon you must never go camping and use a sleeping bag with a long zipper or you wouldn't say what you've said.
The woman who runs the drycleaning shop near where I live also provides a garment alteration service and her main business is shortening jeans and replacing broken zippers! She even specializes in replacing long zippers on leather jackets as they break so often.
When they're such a bane for others one has to wonder why you have so little trouble, or how careful and methodical you are when using them, and or what type you're familiar with, what garments you have them on etc.
Can you honestly say you've never had zipper teeth part company with the fabric or never had to apply candle wax or similar to the teeth so they run smoothly? If yes, then you're a very lucky person.
Really late coming back to this, but yes, I own several sleeping bags with zippers, tents with zippers, backpacks, down coats, gadget and storage bags of various kinds, various other jackets, all kinds of stuff with zippers.
You say "[w]hen they're such a bane for others," but that's not my experience. Here in my seventh decade of life, I have never heard anyone but you complain so much about zippers.
I don't go camping. I have had exactly one thing in my life that I can recall that the zipper broke on it. I think it really depends on what people are buying, how rough they are with their clothing, and many other factors.
> Can you honestly say you've never had zipper teeth part company with the fabric or never had to apply candle wax or similar to the teeth so they run smoothly?
Do regular people ever wax their zippers? (ChatGPT says it might be done by sailors or leatherworkers on occasion, for whatever that's worth.)
