That all seems right in line with your typical sci-fi dystopian worldview, though

Are you suggesting that we should have exploding shoes and nose-diving planes to avoid a dystopia? :P

Your shoes and planes are safe, citizen. Ignore the lies by the treacherous Opposition.

Serious athletes hate it when sporting goods manufacturers "improve" their products, and accidentally end up making them worse due to not understanding what their customers actually valued. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

You could apply the same to a lot of software products and websites that constantly change their design without really improving.

Exactly. May be have good documentation, engineering practices and don't oversell a new model claiming "works exactly like the earlier model"?

Lol, I actually want shoes that don't have a manual, tbh.

Ok, my comment was in the context of airplane control systems/sensors/UIs, but yeah, more generally, things should fail softly

actually I would like that for my running shoes, I live in fear that changing shoe model would re-trigger knee issues, and I almost would like to always buy the same shoes.

Same for my hiking shoes. When some shoes work well, I buy several pairs out of fear of a new model replacing it.

I do the same thing with tennis shoes. If I like a pair I'll go back and buy 4 more pairs before they change the shoe the next year.