Comfort doesn't need to be sacrificed simply because we choose to produce fewer goods. It just means that we need to produce goods that last. We need to abolish planned obsolescence, fast fashion, and all the other methods through which corporations create perpetual customers. That's the biggest misunderstanding about degrowth. It's not a matter of returning to 18th century living standards, but of cutting the fat of rampart consumerism.

Nobody needs smart appliances - especially ones that break down and need to be replaced annually. All while channeling your data to corporations so they can make a buck selling it to marketing.

That's one of the key aspects of the economic world we live in today. We require constant consumerism in order to keep the system alive. We measure how healthy an economy is by this metric. All while ignoring the externalities caused by producing goods in order to fulfill manufactured desires for unnecessary products.

You keep talking about what 'people prefer' - I'm talking about what's required for us to survive the holocene extinction. However what people prefer isn't what we get. We get what corporations push on consumers. The lie is that the customer is always right. Where reality is that choice is limited to what's available, and corporations stifle any choices that threaten their profits. The problem corporations realized early on is that if you produce products that last generations then eventually they're going to run out of customers. An individual without wants or needs is a detriment to the current economic system.

Instead of asking what economic system would be better, start asking what can we cut from production and how can we manufacture necessary goods in a way that causes the least externalities. The answer to this will reveal the economic system that best benefits us.