Has this happened on other parts too? laptops and desktops?
That would be hard to quantify because it would be necessary to know what components inside laptops and desktops are failing and it would be necessary to keep track of those failures over the past 10+ years. I have not done that. But I will say I am still using my Toshiba A505 laptop I bought in Feb 2010 and it still has the original hard drive and original battery too.
But for sure, electronics in general have become more reliable as "solid state", digital electrons and integration technologies advance. I mean back in the day, there were TV repairmen that even made house calls! Your neighborhood grocery and drug stores had free vacuum tube testers. Radio Shacks abound.
When PCs were first being manufactured, companies used to run "burn-in" tests on each computer before they left the factory. This is because typical failures, if they are to occur, occur within the first few minutes and hours or not until years later. And finding those early was better than having an upset customer.
But soon, Dell, Northgate, Compaq, Gateway and the others soon realized their burn-in tests were resulting in fewer and fewer failures because components were not failing. That continues today.
But hard drives are not pure electronic devices. They are electromechanical. You can look at the warranties to get an idea too. In the past almost all drives came with at least 3 year warranties. Some came with 5. These days, 1 and 2 year warranties are not uncommon.
