I'm American and I can tell you: they are moving away from planned obsolescence, where products are built to breakdown/malfunction after a certain amount of time. Companies use this so consumers must buy new products more frequently. It was originally implemented because well-built machinery would last so long, that the companies weren't making enough money due to low sales from lack of breakdowns.
This reminds me of that one potato peeler making company which made such good peelers that one would last a lifetime. They then changed the handle color of their peelers from blue or something to brown so that more people would mistakenly throw it out with the peels, forcing customers to buy more peelers.
"let me in. LET ME IIIIIIIIIIIN"