Of course, cars and engines in particular are more durable today. This is due to technological progress. Cars weren't designed to be unreliable back then, they were unreliable because they couldn't do any better. Two or three years ago, I bought a pair of headphones for 200 euros that looked pretty high quality. They're now so broken that I have to hold them together with gaffer tape. Soon they'll be rotting (or not rotting) in some landfill. It's common knowledge that everyday objects are now deliberately produced in such a way that they don't last long. That's not a conspiracy theory.
I've got a pair of sennheiser headphones from 2011. Work just amazing, despite a decade+ of abuse. Only downside is the pleather on the ear caps wore off, but it's super minor.
I bought another pair back in I want to say 2019, and it's been just OK. The inline mute broke, but everything else about them seems just as quality (no pleather ear caps tho - just fabric which I think is an improvement).
In between those purchases, I've bought a handful of other headsets, all around 50-120$. They were universally crap. Either shit cables, shit comfort, or just wore out really fast.
Anyway, long story short - you can get some lasting quality products. It's super hard to tell when a brand has sold out to the capitalism devil though.
