Anyway it's a bit of blathering, but I generally consider myself as someone that does not buy very much stuff at all, but I still somehow managed 4-5 pairs in the last 12 months. Maybe I'm not as pure as I assume...
edit: Never mind upon reading the article more closely it's clear it isn't describing someone like me. I still take a long time to decide to buy things and even then I usually decide against it. Regardless of my shoe count this year, I definitely don't just buy random crap non-nonchalantly.
But yeah I guess the real point you're making is that if I am actually using and wearing out my stuff, this isn't really a criticism meant for me regardless of the specific number of shoes I go through. (Though maybe I do have some life balance issues.)
And Yes! wearing out stuff is the goal! Especially athletic equipment. My niece (8yo) just wore out the back tire on her tiny bike, just wore the tread right off from use, and the cousins (all older) high-fived her and told her You Go Girl! She was very proud.
Time for a new bike anyway - she's grown some. Auntie went right out with her to buy one and now she's back on the road.
Martial arts, because mat shoes need to be soft enough to not injure a sparring partner, but still get used aggressively for hours every week.
Semi-formal shoes for work and going out.
Casual shoes for mowing the lawn in or other house work.
Flat-footed trainers for the gym, kept clean of any oil or other hazards (which is why they can't overlap with the lawn mowing shoes).
A pair of decent, well shined shoes for truly formal occasions (weddings, funerals).
Water shoes, for swimming in water holes and going tubing down the local river.
Note here that I don't run, which apparently truly eats shoes, and all of my shoes are high quality except my lawn mowing/house work shoes, because they're exposed to all sorts of crap like paint. These are just the shoes I've bought this year - my safety boots are still in decent condition, and it's likely my dress shoes will be last many more years.
2. I do have half a dozen different types of shoes (something like 1 or 2 pairs of army boots, 1 for cycling, 1 for MB-hiking-gardening, 1 for gardening, 1 pair of tennis shoes to wander in and around the house, and probably 1 old worn spare one I forget about). It doesn't mean I buy them all every year. I haven't bought any in 2017 or 2018. The army boots are 5 to 10 years old, same for the hiking shoes I use for mountain-biking (4 years old?) and gardening (15 years old?), since I cannot really hike any more. The tennis/cycling shoes are dying but they were already dying last year and in fact they are still good enough :-) So I probably buy only 1, perhaps 2 pairs, in an average year.
Climbing shoes on the other hand I need to have resoled every 6 months or so.
A pair of boots because my old boots finally fell apart and a pair of trainers / sneakers because I was going on holiday.
In general I try to minimise buying clothes. I hate the entire process.
Growing feet, play, sports, and back-to-school means that parents are buying shoes for kids every couple of months.
7.4 pairs of shoes per year seems absurd, but it may be a case of a less fortunate person not being able to afford the initial high cost of longer-lasting footwear (aka: The Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness)
https://www.thebillfold.com/2015/03/to-terry-pratchett-who-g...
Even though it comes from a fiction fantasy novel, I think there may be some truth to it. I have two pairs each (brown and black) of oxford shoes and Red Wing boots for work. I was able to afford really high quality shoes and have had the oxfords resoled three times in 11 years, with the boots being durable enough that they haven't yet needed new soles after five. I also have the time to spend a leisurely Sunday evening polishing them, to keep them in good shape.
I also don't care about wearing the same four pairs of shoes, one after another in a predictable cycle, all of the time.
Someone who can't afford USA-made leather boots and Italian-made Oxford dress shoes, and also lacks the time to care for them, may be stuck in a cycle where their cheaper footwear wears out quickly.
Even for sneakers, I pay a premium for USA-made New Balance sneakers, and they last an entire year after which I relegate them to lawn mower duty and replace them. They are old man shoes though, so their aesthetic may not be for everyone. If I ran, I would have to replace them more often-- my wife runs and she replaces her running shoes multiple times per year.
Then again, I don't have a job in the service industry where I'm standing the entire time and walking 10 miles every day so I may have unreasonable expectations about how long shoes should last.
So it could be socioeconomic unfairness, or it may be rampant consumerism, or it may be a combination of the two....
The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.
I probably should buy shoes more often, that's easily 10 times more often than I do it. Perhaps that was the "wrong" conclusion from this article, though, oops.