I get the feeling Bethesda don’t want to balance the economy around players looting enemies for stuff to sell but can’t think of a way to actually make that work. This is just Todd Howard screaming at the player to make his job easier.

Have you seen the screenshots of what people hoard? That is probably the most relevant NPC statement in the whole game.

Sam has got to be one of the worst Bethesda characters of all time.

Pfft, everything is useful at some point for something. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find someone to sell these 10 broken rakes to.

Seriously though, some games end up with mods that make junk useful. Skyrim has one that lets you use the smelter to convert everything in the “junk” tab into crafting mats.