As an entrepreneur, with product management expertise, my perspective is this. Every product that comes out will have a certain failure rate, so as a consumer there is a "luck of the draw" factor to whether you get a product that is a lemon or not. Generally speaking, later
generation products have lower failure rates because a good company will have learned from their design and production mistakes and will have really dialed in their manufacturing. The big caveat is that if the company changes some components or suppliers or design features in later generations, it can cause new issues to arise because it adds another layer of complexity.
My rules of thumb are:
1) If the company has a reputation for putting out 1st generation new products that don’t have high failure rates, then it's okay to buy first generation, but I don't usually do it the first week, I will wait for a month or so to hear if there some is consistent failure issue that they missed in their quality control.
2)If it’s a new company that hasn’t launched new products before, wait for 2nd generation, so that you aren’t paying for their learning curve.
3)If it’s a mechanical product that requires extensive parts manufacturing (e.g. a car), wait for later generations (at least 2nd or 3rd) because they will want to keep cranking out the same parts to realize economies of scale and the production will keep getting more dialed and reliable.
