Comment by Sharlin

It also helps that the Nordic societies aren't quite as thoroughly consumerized as the US. The advertising is less in-your-face, consumption is regarded as less virtuous, there's less drive to purchase useless junk that only exists to make profit. There's a neologism in Finnish, "turhake", a useless product; the word is a play on "hyödyke", meaning a good (literally: "a thing with utility")