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.
A new video from NELHA shows off-grid water tank manufacturing in Kona, Hawaii using concentrated solar heat. With most of the Big Island dependent on rain catchment, tanks are a critical resource - now made inexpensively without fossil fuels.
With the understanding that DIY is great, and this is a super-cool project, etc, we've used this [1] commercial door opener from Omlet (chuckle) with great results. Can be set to open/close at specific times, or manually, or after light/dark with programmed delay. No decapitations so far; auto-opens if there's resistance to opening above a mild threshold. Wifi connected if desired.