The article mentions light bulb durability. There was a cartel, the awesomely-named Phoebus Cartel [1] that encouraged its members to reduce the typical operating life of bulbs from 2500 hours to 1000 hours to increase bulb sales.

So the author's list of 'Why Stuff is Bad' should * certainly * include 'lack of anti-trust laws and enforcement'. Rent-seeking, anti-trust, regulatory capture should all be mentioned in this under-thought blog product.

Seriously, not mentioning useful regulation and standards as a countermeasure to the negative trends the author describes seems like willful blindness.

[1] Phoebus Cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

Bulbs with a shorter lifetime are also a lot more efficient, because they run hotter.

That's why that one bulb that's been burning for a 100 years in a firestation somewhere is only just glowing.