My dad worked with the Sony R&D labs throughout his career and brought back various Walkmen and other strange devices for the Japanese market. We kids loved it, of course, and put these things through some pretty rough days of listening to our mix tapes. I remember all of them failing, most of the newer models were much too complex and held together with tiny screws to survive for long. I've heard that Japanese consumers are much more careful with their stuff, keep it in the little pouches and generally protect their gear from abuse.
I've heard that Japanese consumers are much
more careful with their stuff
I've always heard that as well and anecdotally it matches my experience when ordering previously-owned items from Japan via eBay, etc.
One could conjecture a number of reasons. Relative to America, the average Japanese living space is smaller and when one owns less items I imagine one would take care of each item more carefully. Additionally, some items are simply more expensive in Japan: physical media such as music CDs have typically been something like 2x as expensive as in America.
I suspect it actually goes deeper than that and there are deeper cultural factors at play, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to expound on them.
As an American I've never understood how other Americans can be so rough with their stuff. I'd rather own fewer, nicer things and maintain them. Perhaps it's just my innate cheapness.
Of course, if I had free Walkmans like you as a kid -- I bet I would have abused them too. After all, they were free =)
I suspect you're right about the Japanese culture and definitely about the cost of things.
When it comes to being rough with my stuff I think I've learned some lessons: I'm careful, for example, with the vintage watch my wife gave me but I expect my power tools to be able to handle some tough use cases. I have been fortunate enough that I'm able to buy higher quality stuff now that I'm older so that helps.
