Big businesses and items that need to be made by machines and children with nimble fingers in foreign lands seem very remote for me to be able to influence with anything other than refusal.

In my case the digital revolution has made thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment useless, unless I match it with thousands of dollars worth of conversions. 
I did love the nifty digital SLR I got, but I was a bit shocked to learn that I actually did pretty good to make the sensor last four years.  Really???  A new camera every couple of years or so? 
My Leica M3 from the fifties is still totally functional.  In fact that thing is designed to be fine after you drop it off a fifty foot cliff I think.  The film's kind of expensive though.  So right now I am pretty much cameraless for real purposes, although I've probably got at least five cameras in the house - three that take film (35mm, medium format, 4x5) plus the digital SLR which at this point makes images with dark blotches and other deterioration.

Now get this;  I can get a completely new digital SLR package for about a hundred bucks less than what it would cost me to get that sensor replaced.  There is also nothing to be gained by just getting a camera body.  They are now more expensive than the lenses and I've not yet found a body without a lens that doesn't cost more than a complete kit. 

The digital age apparently has made planned obsolescence a snap.  I don't know enough about technology to swear to this, but I would bet that it's possible to make digital devices nearly as solid as an old Leica. 

The truly scary thing is that I have personal friends that are trying to figure out how to make people buy more of their stuff, because that's a big part of how people make a living these days:  selling stuff. 

Sustainability is a difficult subject in a culture whose religion is unlimited growth.  I've noticed that many people find it odd that I aspire to a more modest life than the one my parents lived.  Perhaps it has a whiff of sour grapes to them, but I find it liberating.

It seems to me only a reflection of that one giant truth constantly staring us in the face, that we are all made to be obsolete.

It never occurs to these companies that their products should strive for immortality because they themselves cannot attain it.

I think the two of you are right, that there is something here worth getting angry about. In a way it has to do with a deviousness attached to capitalism, that whatever will persuade a consumer to consume more qualifies as being a viable method.

But I sense that also at stake are our own perceptions of permanence. What value do we as a society attach to permanence? And if any, why? Why should we as a people be dedicated to an idea that we cannot achieve ourselves? Is it an immoral decision for a company to build death right into its product?

If everyone's goal on the planet was for permanence we'd be well on our way to a lasting peace. But what your post demonstrates is that not everyone has incentive for permanence. And for there to exist measurable sustainability it must exist on every level. We must strive for permanence in everything we do, from our products on up.

I think your post invites a greater question about how we should all attempt to live: permanently.  

You got me to think a bit further now, Morgan.

There isn't much permanence in nature either, but there is a sort of cyclic balance, manifested in regeneration and decomposition.  Man-made objects/gadgets are often neither be sustainably made, nor do they tend to degrade without cost to the environment. 
Some tools are incredibly useful.  So I think whatever cannot be made and disposed of without cost to the environment, should be made to last.  At the same time, if something can be easily made from rapidly renewable resources, and composted after use, there's no need for its permanence.