Hmm. Yes, but the alternative is you pass the roller on to your neighbor, or you use a roller from a tool bank, or sell it on second-hand, which things work better if the quality is better.

FWIW I inspected several rollers, not just the cheapest and they all appeared to have the flaw of very short metal "tang", and hollowed out plastic handle, just that bit too thin meaning it flexes too much. If the "tang" was a cm longer then they'd be fixable with a bit of old broom handle (drill hole, add epoxy, ...).

I'm not suggesting it's a conspiracy, just a natural part of the race to the bottom that Western Capitalism creates.

It's the same pressure that leads to reducing the food volume and keeping a packet the same size - "hey boss, we can reduce ingredient costs 2%".

So, "we want to reduce material volume", so the 'tang' is shortened until the thing just holds together, and the plastic is thinned so that as the plasticiser leeches out, and the extra pressure of the shortened tang acts on it, then it snaps. "If we reduce materials this much it'll break within 20 hours of use", which the boss thinks is perfect because they're optimising locally for profit and not globally for "keeping the planet livable".