This is how we phrase it in Australia.

I'm Australian and have only heard, "where there's smoke, there's fire".

Could you explain what you mean by 'hardware is viewed as hard'?

Imagine you ship a webcam and then find out that one of the capacitors you used is undersized and the camera randomly reboots when another USB device is plugged into a nearby port. You just shipped 5,000 of these and customers are unhappy.

Unlike software you can’t just issue an update. You must manufacture new devices, issue refunds, send replacements. And all the while your competitor sells a very comparable $50 device so you can’t charge a subscription fee and make thousands off each customer over a lifetime. Software margins are huge compared to hardware and risk is often much much lower.

Hardware requires manufacturing ($, and slow change cycles), and prices are cut-throat.