>Craftsman used to stand for quality, with a lifetime no-questions-asked guarantee wherein, if the tool fails for any reason, it will be replaced. Period. No questions asked, no receipt required. Quality. And men proudly used their father's or grandfather's tools.
This means people bring in 25, or 50 year old worn down tools, and Craftsman replaces them for free. While having to pay modern material and labor costs to replace a tool that was bought 25-50 years before. If that happens too much, it becomes a huge liability on the company. Hopefully the person walking in to replace a damaged or worn hammer or screwdriver decides to buy a set of wrenches while standing there, making it an upsell for Craftsman, but likely it didn't happen enough to keep them viable.
Harbor Freight offers the same warranty now on their hand tools, and Home Depot on Husky's (Home Depot even did a promotion around the time Sears ended their warranty where they'd replace a craftsman tool with a husky for free).
The cost of the replacement is marketing at some point; replacing a obviously abused tool may be a technical loss but you've a customer for life; unless you betray them as Craftsman did (which is why people are still so heated about it twenty years later).
But no one looking to seriously buy tools goes to Harbor Freight, expecting to pass that tool to their child or grandchildren. They go there to buy the crappy chinesium grade tool that gets a job done. If they find that they need the tool often enough, then they buy the heirloom grade one.
This means people bring in 25, or 50 year old worn down tools, and Craftsman replaces them for free. While having to pay modern material and labor costs to replace a tool that was bought 25-50 years before. If that happens too much, it becomes a huge liability on the company. Hopefully the person walking in to replace a damaged or worn hammer or screwdriver decides to buy a set of wrenches while standing there, making it an upsell for Craftsman, but likely it didn't happen enough to keep them viable.