It depends on what things you're talking about - for laptops, I found that not to be the case, i.e., they do last long. My last MBP was a 2012 model, and its still going strong. I have a SurfaceBook laptop as well, completely unused at this stage and exception of a couple of issues cropping up didn't let me down. I fully expect my Thinkpad to last more then 3 years and so far the build quality of it has led me to believe I shouldn't be disappointed
I guess I got a great deal with Lenovo because I paid in the 80 dollar range for 2 years (for a full warranty period of 3 years). I'm pretty happy about that. I just looked at Amazon and BestBuy's 2 year extended warranty, which are 137 and 273 respectively. Both of those seem to include accidental damage and my extended warranty does not, yet I'm still pretty tickled pink that about the low cost.