Why is Technology so Easy to Break?

Just over a week ago, a bunch of news sites were talking about a new book and video focusing on 56 Broken Kindles. Sadly, this weekend I also broke my iPod touch. It dropped and the screen shattered. I’ve heard that dropping even e-readers will cause problems to the e-ink screen. So my question is:

Why are our electronic devices so easy to break now?

We used to value durability over complete functionality. I fondly remember how I could drop my Nokia without anything going wrong, which was great! Now, to get the same protection, you have to spend $50+ to get anything near the same kind of protection for a phone and that’s assuming a truly durable case is available for the model phone you have.

I’m even somewhat lucky that I don’t have one of the newest devices where the touch functionality is built into the glass, so at least mine works well enough for me to do a backup before turning it in for repairs.