Have our standards been lowered too far?

Why is it now an expectation that something will go wrong?

It's pathetic that most products don't work like they're supposed to. Those that do work only last a couple of years at most. Same things with services -- when was the last time you had a truly great experience from a service provider?

It seems that a great experience with no problems is now the exception to the rule.

I'm falling into Seth Godin-ish territory here, but it's really beginning to bug me: companies, large and small, seem more interested in conning me into buying something than in making that 'something' actually worth buying.

Right now, I'm typing this post on a laptop (a Dell) that turns itself off if it's not on a perfectly flat surface. It's only a couple of years old. It is, in fact, a replacement for another laptop (a Toshiba) that self-destructed within a few months of purchase.

I just spent over half a year waiting for a bathtub (made by Maax) to arrive (from Home Depot) that wasn't either damaged or built to the incorrect specifications.

Sock-making technology has been around for, what, a few hundred years? And yet most socks I buy still have that annoying seam going right across the toes.

I bought a coffee today (at Starbucks) and the lid was simply incapable of attaching securely to the cup.

My cell phone (a Samsung) is actually pretty good, but has a simple and completely-preventable flaw -- I can't add a new contact if they share a phone number with a previous contact, even if all the other contact information is different.

Sure, some of the above are just annoying, but WHY are companies so incapable or unwilling to get better? More importantly, WHY are we, as consumers, settling for this? And WHY are we as marketers not demanding that our companies do things better?