I figure it's consumerism meeting economic anxieties. Most people I see exhibiting this sort of behavior could probably afford a replacement, but not comfortably. When your identity hinges on the sort of things you have and consume (as it sort of inevitably does in hellworld), but your ability to afford these things narrows, one way forward, without abandoning this sort of consumerism-based identity formation wholesale, is switching to a sort of curatorial mindset. Where you're collecting things, instead of consuming them, where you are worried about the longevity of your products, their degradation and maintenance. Where you're anxious about something breaking all the time, a sort of ascetic, curatorial consumerism.