In a recent party, we were discussing the poor quality of most kitchen appliances. The topic began because a friend (Mike) complained that he was on his third or fourth bread machine. I jokingly suggested that any appliance with "For Household Use Only" stamped on the bottom was a piece of junk, meant to hold together only long enough to get it off the showroom floor. This was called to mind by my seemingly solid electric pasta machine, which nonetheless stopped working after it had produced a few dozen batches. It provided the information needed to translate "For Household Use Only" correctly.
The first Kitchen Aid stand mixer I had stopped working after about a month of use. It came with a lifetime warranty, so I took it to a local appliance repair center. There, they replaced the broken annular gear (free of charge), and it has worked fine ever after -- providing almost two decades of faithful service before I gave it to my niece. I joked that it came with a cheap, nylon annular gear, but when I took it in for service, they replaced that one with one of solid brass.
Whether or not that's true, it suggests a business model that could be quite successful: Have a production model of your product that is manufactured rather cheaply. Nonetheless, deliver the standard model with a lifetime guarantee, and charge a bit extra because you can claim superior quality. The trick is, that most owners will not use the product nearly enough to discover its flaw. Those who do will hopefully return the unit for service or replacement. The replacement unit or parts are top quality. If the unit ever comes in for repair, *all* of the cheap critical components are exchanged for top-of-the-line replacements.
Among those who actually use the appliance it will eventually earn the reputation for high reliability, while among the rest the assertion will never be tested. Meanwhile the difference in price between what can be charged for a top quality model and the cheap models you actually produce is almost pure profit. As long as the amortized cost of repairing (or replacing) the models which do come in is less than that margin, you're money ahead.
I suppose that selling crappy software along with the promise to fix any bugs that may arise follows pretty much the same business model....
