Stand mixers (I know Kitchenaid) do this as well, they use nylon gear that will strip if the paddle gets stuck instead of burning out the much more expensive motor.

This is actually the story behind Phillips head screws as well.

When factory automation took off, they couldn’t program the machines to stop when a screw was tight. So it would overtightened and deform the product.

So automated manufacturing started using (very shallow) phillips head screws, and once they were tight the head would strip, the bit would spin free, and the machine read the lack of resistance as “stop”.

As machinary advanced, they were able to stop before stripping, and products had functional screws again. Because of that Phillips screws were able to get deeper bites, but they still can strip out eventually, because they were literally designed to do that when over tightened.

And we’re all just still using it, because that’s what most people use. Pretty much anything else is always going to be better.