Nowadays. Everything are built to break. Often as soon as waranty is ended.

As a business. You do not want to sell something that last forever. That's just bad business.

You just need to build it to last "long enough" to give the consumers a sense that it was justified for X amount of use.

Depending on the areas of technology, the pace of new and better and cheaper tech may differ.

Remember when you bought a Pentium 2 and thought it was fast as hell and would last your forever and ever?

I disagree with you. Nothing is ever built to break. As a business, you actually do want to sell stuff that last forever. That is good for business, as it creates customer loyalty. What you don't want to do is guarantee that they will last forever (unlimited life-time warranty). That's bad for business. Companies rely on the rapid advancement of technology to keep people coming back. Which, to me, is a very fair and nice system.
That said, what is the question again?

Businesses trickle out technology as technology is sometimes not ready for consumers. Remember when Bill Gates announced the "tablet" and it never caught wind. Years later Steve Jobs announces Ipad and sells like hot cakes. 

On a graphics department. Consoles, pcs, smartphones and even wrist watches, will reach parity.

But on evolving technology in all it's fronts, with new products that change the landscape, there's no way that something is future proof.

You think so? I think TV's will continue to add pixels and pixels and pixels.

My estimate on a very small knowledge of pixels.

Companies don't and won't really do it unless as a marketing plot. The very thing that keeps technology moving forward is the fact we buy stuff and thus fund the near-term research of something better.

Of course that's not to say some stuff can't last for even decades. Just that, specially as far as electronics are concerned, that's still unlikely. Maybe in the coming decades when Moore's law is no more, I don't know.

As far as TV's I think when we reach 8k there will be a plateau for a while. When you make a 'retina level' display (one that looks very good close up) and it is still 8 feet across!

Now I would love to see flexible screens - so you can flatten them when friends are over and watching a movie. Then curl them around you for a good 180 degree screen when you game all by yourself!

As far as 'future proofing' I think it is really an advertising gimmick. Sure, you can try to stay flexible with your hardware and make it 'easily upgradable.' (I'm thinking PC's) But it really doesn't work - because the technology advancements really obliterate what came before.

For example: You can double the speed of the CPU - and pop in a new one that's great. But when the bus innovation (the highway it's driving on) is 4 times and requires a change in hardware more than just a CPU increase.

So in this example you could double your speed, but by a hardware upgrade increase processing power 8 times. That is the real innovation.

No. "Because it's future proof" should never be a reason for buying anything. Buy because it is uselful to you now, or wait until you need it and buy the best at that time.

Now what IS insane is TV companies' expectations that people would upgrade their TVs every 1-2 years like they would a phone or laptop. The use case for TVs is not changing fast enough to warrant this; HD -> Full HD -> 3D -> 4K are becoming less and less effective rationales for upgrading.

@Zappykins

The plateau is here already with HD. Most people's eyesight and living room size don't justify anything bigger especially with a >$1000 price tag attached.

We have also reached a demand plateau in desktop CPUs (2006, Core 2), video game graphics (2006, 360), laptop PCs for non-gaming (2011, Sandy Bridge). We haven't reached it for smartphone/tablet performance or battery life which is why those devices are 'hot'.

Yes... I have this electronic sharpener since 1988 and it still works... I think it will go on for at least 20 years... I do have to admit that around 2004 I was scared that the world would stop using pencils so my device would be outdated and obsolete

In terms of game consoles it's good for companys to create value over time for the consumer. They can accomplish this in two major ways. #1 Big games that people enjoy and #2 Adding secondary features through firmware updates. Sometimes the market will create value for a console without the manufacturer having to lift a finger, there were not many Blu-Ray movies when the PS3 launched but now there are alot more movies available. This makes the PS3's Blu-Ray playback feature more desireable.