I remember, when I was pregnant with my first, trying to figure out what we actually needed for the baby VS. what useless crap we were being manipulated into buying or else be "cheap" or "bad parents".
This starts to address the cultural rise of the baby crap industry:
https://jezebel.com/the-baby-products-business-is-huge-growing-and-wants-1745930936
Re: Interesting read about baby "stuff"