It's definitely a trend, and if you think about it, it's logical consequence of consumer product manufacturers dealing with shorter development cycles and fighting to be the first to hit the market. It's easier to pay a bunch of outsourced telephone jockeys to answer tech support questions than it is to get someone to develoop quality documentation. Furthermore, products change so quickly and frequently now that you could start printing the document, ship out the product, and by the time it reaches the consumer, the docs are already out of date. Another factor is probably that most electronics nowadays come from other countries, so manuals often have to be translated. Any time you introduce another step in the process, it reduces the effectiveness, and takes longer to get done.

Anyway, I don't see this trend reversing, because demand drives supply, and nobody really pays more for better documentation.