I completely disagree about engineering things to fail. That is false. No company would do that simply to increase repairs and such. That would only hurt their name. Every now and then there is simply a quality issue or material issue, like you probably experienced. Engineers do make mistakes too when it comes to how much abuse a part will take.
However, there are companies that do some slightly sketchy things to increase profit. Take for example: Apple. They release an Iphone 5 that is superior to their iphone 4. they have the technology and ability to release an Iphone 5s, but they wait until about a year or so later to release it, so that all of the people who own the 5 will want to upgrade and purchase a new one.
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