That explanation, as dumb as it seems, can be the actual and only reason for many designs. Barely functional heatsinks in laptops, using 0.1mm metal backsides in keyboards instead of 0.25 or something (the fucking thing bends and keys stop working!), plastic clips instead of screws, etc.
Yeah, we say "it's just $0.05, I'll gladly pay that for higher quality!". But somewhere, a new CxO is saying "we have saved $10,000,000 on production this year". And it's a big number, indeed.
But what about the users? Well, fuck the users. They will buy overpriced parts from the company or a new device from the company or the few competitors who do the same thing. They could be in cahoots, but it's more than likely they all decided saving tens/hundreds of millions a year is worth far more than a small number of disappointed buyers.
Yeah, we say "it's just $0.05, I'll gladly pay that for higher quality!". But somewhere, a new CxO is saying "we have saved $10,000,000 on production this year". And it's a big number, indeed.
But what about the users? Well, fuck the users. They will buy overpriced parts from the company or a new device from the company or the few competitors who do the same thing. They could be in cahoots, but it's more than likely they all decided saving tens/hundreds of millions a year is worth far more than a small number of disappointed buyers.