The real price of cheap electronic goods.

Before we start.
I should point out that this is not intended as a rant or a call to arms, I have no plans to call for a ban on cheap products. I do understand that some people are living on a tight budget, and we cannot all afford the better, rather more expensive option.
Rather than telling you to stop buying cheap electronics, I am actually going to suggest that you could go even cheaper.

What this is about.
The electronics industry, like most industries, is now driven by price. Price and profit come first, regardless of the amount of needless waste and what it does to the environment.
In order to reduce prices, manufacturers obviously have to reduce costs. In many cases, this can mean cutting corners and scrapping perfectly good equipment simply because their production revolves around producing more. It is cheaper for them to produce excess amounts of the product, scrapping some, than to spend time looking for their mistakes.

Market forces.
Here in the UK, the consumer appears to be swayed by a couple of main issues:
  Gadgets.
  Price.
More knobs and buttons on electronic equipment makes it look more impressive, even if you will never touch those controls. Software companies boast about all the things their product can do, knowing that most of those functions will never be used. But they sound impressive.
As for price, nobody is cheaper than a Brit hitting the High Street. If you cannot see the difference (more knobs), then lowest price wins. Really, we are a victim of our own greed. We want to be paid high wages, yet pay low prices in the shops. Manufacturers are simply giving us exactly what we go for, and the higher quality products simply get pushed out the market place.

Driving forces.
Here in the UK, although efforts are made to keep costs down, the main driving force has always been quality. A product should do what it is designed to do, and keep doing it for a reasonable period of time.
The alternative idea is that it should simply be cheap, a short life will ensure that you sell more. The question is just how much you can cut and get away with it.