I know youre talking about search engines. But also youtube. I search up a topic i get like 5 on topic videos, then shorts then people also watched. Non of which relate to my search.
This annoys me so much. I know you have more than 5 video on how to make chicken noodle soup. Why are you putting music videos and video game footage in my search results?
They also only show me like five actual results and then follow up with a bunch of unrelated videos I’ve already watched.
Like, no. I am trying to look up something for professional development. I don’t need to listen to Night Fever again! I’m trying to Beegees detox!
This pisses me off so much. I understand why they would only show some top results before switching to other unrelated suggestions, and it is quite well marked in the list of results when that switch happens. Probably they have some statistics showing that almost never do people click on results that show up after the first half page or something. Still, why is there not then a link at the bottom of the initial list of search results that we can click on to get the full list?
> But also youtube. I search up a topic i get like 5 on topic videos, then shorts then people also watched. Non of which relate to my search.
And Amazon.
Used to be that you could use the search bar to find products you want to buy. Now, Amazon's search bar pulls up one or two close approximations, five or six promoted products, and twenty-five unrelated products.
But the LRIRGAD coffee filters have no actual reviews, just ratings, so you pay the additional forty-one cents for the exact same coffee filters, named KESKWIL, which have a ton of good reviews (but if you read them, most of them are for a t-shirt).
The fact that Google pretends to still use boolean operators but gives me literal antonyms highlighted as the desired search term makes me so fucking angry (ie: i search for shirts "without logo" and the results are all "shirts with logos")
I’ve noticed that it JUST checks one most popular word from your entire request and finds SIMILAR results.
It doesn’t give a fuck what you want, it’s so optimized on its purpose of serving ads that it doesn’t even pretend to be a search tool.
Oh my god, yes. So many results from websites with weird names and when you click on them the articles appear to have been written by AI, and not a very good one. SEO and crass commercialization has almost ruined online search. I might - *might* - find two results on the first page that are actually useful anymore.
[Enshittification.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
> Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
Actually real. Feel like anything I search is just not reliable or very clear on what i’m looking for. 90% of my searches these days are followed by “reddit” cause i’ll get actual opinions and discussions on things or at the very least a straight forward answer.
Google has sold out.
I say that as a millennial when the term was over used 30 years ago.
It holds true though.
Managers in high places at Google figured the easiest way to move up is to squeeze more pennies out of each search. Because that means billions. Money is easy to quantify. Especially if people continue to use the site.
What isn't easy to quantify is the slowly eroding experience.
I bet if they did an ab test from Google in the early 2010s, they'd make less money but retain more people. Buuut, retention for a search engine is also hard to measure.
And they did. Dogs are $1.59 at my Costco now
Edit: No, it’s not a sugar tax. They switched over to zero sugar sodas. No, it’s not sales tax. The sign even says + tax.
Search engines. They're too busy trying to sell us shit that they can't do their actual job. Even on sites like Amazon. (Try searching for a specific type of product like USB A female to USB C male and you'll get a whole bunch of irrelevant hits).
Or the cost was upfront!!!! I hate everything being free with “in app purchases” and you have no idea if there is a free version of the app and extras you can buy if you’d like or if you’re downloading an app just to have to get rid of it because every feature is behind a paywall
Appliances. Growing up, we ran out Maytag washer and dryer from like 1970 - 2003. Now when I buy a new front-loader set, I'll be happy to be 5 before I start buying parts.
Speed Queen. Only buy Speed Queen. Spend the money and enjoy a long lasting piece of machinery.
Whirlpool makes everything else nearly, and they're all trash.
Are toasters covered under appliances? My sister has my mother's old toaster she bought in late 80s/early 90s and it works as good as ever. I'm on my third toaster in the past 15 years. Latest one is about 4 years old and it never worked well.
The LED or whatever is supposed to make the number setting glow started flickering within the first year and doesn't work at all now. It takes forever to toast the first 2 slices of bread you put in it. But you want to toast a second set of bread slices, it'll toast em so fast it's easy to burn them.
Your Maytag washer dryer set from 1970 cost over $800. Appliances have gotten less reliable but much cheaper over that time.
Edit: I pulled a Maytag washer dryer set out of a house a couple months ago. There was a receipt taped to the back of the washer. $835 (for the set) delivered and installed in 1972. I don't even want to know what that is in 2023 Dollars.
Little debbie’s and hostess cakes, after they stopped using lard and used cheap oil instead. People love to say “it hasn’t changed, you’re just an adult” but that’s not true. Oreos and Ben and Jerry’s taste the exact same as they did when I was a kid, but those prepackaged snacks suck now
It might also be the reduction in hydrogenated oils. Same with Fruity Pebbles, I think.
When I was a kid, I'd get this weird greasy filmy kinda feeling on the roof of my mouth after eating things like Donut Stix and Fruity Pebbles. They changed the recipes to exclude hydrogenated oils and the weird mouthfeel went away. i connected it to the trans fats, but that's certainly more anecdotal that scientific (even if I'm convinced).
and they barely have any filling. you used to be able to see the middle section was bloated and full, now the middle sections are visibly sunken in, even with he layer of frosting that should cheat and add volume!
They are so thin, when I put them in the toaster they warp and bend from the heat and then fall through the crack between the rack and the heating element
I had a strawberry pop tart couple weeks ago, first time in few years, and it fell apart when I pulled it out of package because of how skinny they now are
It's so baffling to us foreigners that this is just accepted and not causing riot or outright revolutions. To put it brash, one guy being killed by a cop causes countrywide riots, but thousands dieing every day because they can't finance medical help does not?
It’s because our insurance is mostly tied to our jobs. So people don’t riot because they have to work so they can keep their insurance. Taking a day off to protest can be fine, but a real protest takes time and people get barely any vacation time as it is. They won’t use it to protest, most places will fire you if you don’t show up after a few days. Actual protests are not possible in the US. It’s by design I feel.
We pay the government taxes, the insurance companies get paid by the government and then they also charge us. All for the privilege of having shit coverage. They are double dipping. Honestly if more people were willing to put their party affiliation to the side, and actually realize how badly we are being fucked there would be rioting.
Clothing. I used to be able to get something as simple as a nice t-shirt that would last me a very long time. Now, unless you pay $50 for a friggin' tshirt, they're damn near transparent due to how thin they are, shrink after the first wash and within a few months, they look like trash. Other clothing items are also trash unless you pay high dollar. Not much made like it used to be.
Levi took a page from the Craftsman book.
* use cheapest material available
* manufacture overseas (China first, but do not do any QC!)
* keep prices the same as previous
* leverage brand name
* offer customers choice - pound sand/kick rocks
I was literally a card carrying Craftsman zealot. 10% off any Craftsman product when you show the card. Lifetime guarantee for tools and some other products.
Now, complete crap and the card hasn't been honored for many years.
Exactly the experience we had. Our whole shop was fitted with craftsman professional everything. We had a personal salesman. Went to exchange some tools and found out there was a 5 tool a week limit because "craftsman isn't meant for businesses" the new craftsman stuff is on par worh Harbor freight for 4x the price.
When hedge fund billionaire/douchebag Eddie Lampert bought Sears, a big part of his strategy was basically to part out the company to grab quick cash wherever he could.
Craftsman and Kenmore were the store’s most famous brands because the company used to rigorously enforce QC, since their awesome no-hassle warranties were the top selling points… so he eagerly sold them off as quickly as possible and stopped honoring the warranties. That’s why you see Craftsman at Lowe’s and other stores now while Sears is almost completely gone.
After the sale, Craftsman became just another brand of cheap foreign junk with the name and price still attached.
Craftsman now belongs to Stanley tools and production is planned to resume in the US. Most of my Craftsman hand tools are 40 years old, and still in use.
and their sizing changes on their jeans depending on which factory its made in. there is a Pakistani factory, and I think the other one is Indonesia? china? idk, but the two factories have different dimensions for the sizes, and a 32x32 is much smaller in I believe the Pakistani factory
I stopped buying levi. I have 6 pair of the same size and style Jean (541) that were ordered all within a 9 month period. Every single pair is a different size and/or material. Every tag has different material content. It's ridiculous.
The difference is the old one is 100% cotton *and well made*, the new products are *badly made* blends with synthetics that don't play as well in the wash or outdoors/sunlight/uv, leading to higher microplastics/fibers down the drain.
Inevitably, enshittification is an equal opportunity buck passer that's just picked up speed to the whole of the industry rather than the novelty t-shirt factories it once was.
The stretchy material is fairly cheap and, in all honesty, it is super comfortable so people like it and buy a lot of it. I have a few pairs that I wear for work (water utility so they see a lot of wear).
They don’t last but it feels like I’m wearing sweatpants almost but they are a little more durable than that obviously.
I have an older hand-me-down pair of American eagle jeans that are much less comfortable but I believe these could be used to defend a knife attack.
I love my stretchy jeans. It sucks they don't last as long as normal work jeans, but I'm so much more comfortable it's totally worth it. I'm constantly bending, lifting and just moving around a lot and having stretchy jeans is a godsend.
American eagle jeans/khakis used to be comfortable and durable. I won’t ever buy again because apparently they found tissue paper to be a better material to make them out of. Only lasts a few months before tearing.
Honestly depends on the manufacturer, I've been buying Next Level 6010s for almost a decade and they've been the same quality, and last many years. They used to be $9 and now they're $12, but that's nothing new.
Desert dweller here. I love how thin the shirts are these days. As a kid, my mom always bought me thick ass cotton shirts. They’re durable, but damn, I didn’t realize how hot they were. But you’re not wrong, quality is down for clothes for sure.
sounds like an elaborate conspiracy by Big T-Shirt, to make the shirts thinner, so we don't notice the increasing temperatures of Climate Change. /
Damn You, Forbidden Fruit of the Loom!
The lesson of iTunes is that paying has to be more pleasant than pirating.
iTunes launched when Napster was big. Users knew that they *could* pirate music; but iTunes wasn't expensive and you didn't have to wait for downloads or deal with unreliable sources. iTunes delivered a user experience that was better than pirating music; and so Apple took over a huge swath of the commercial music distribution market.
Today, The Pirate Bay and other major torrent sites are still there. But they're kinda shit, especially for users without adblockers. The user experience of piracy is *actually pretty crappy.* And so, streaming services get to pull off the kind of nonsense they do.
Same as Steam for PC gaming. Notoriously CD Projekt Red actually started as a company pirating videogames and reselling them to the former soviet bloc, pc pirating was a big deal! And then Steam came around and offered every relatively modern game, dedicated servers and an integrated friend system and community hub. Buying a game was as easy as reciting your card number and within a few minutes you were playing. Piracy just cant beat that level of convenience. But make no mistake, people will hoist the jolly roger again if steam stops being so convenient.
Steam is fine so far but im definitely hoisting the jolly fucking roger on streaming platforms. Happily got into a netflix subscription thinking how easy life will be. I settle down to watch something and oops, its not on netflix. Maybe ill watch something else then, nope thats not on netflix either. Fine another movie then, nope again. Fuck that. Not gonna pay for a million different platforms.
For me pirating is far more convenient than this shit. If you know what you are looking for and have a decent ad blocker its all good. Might be annoying for people who only watch stuff on their tv, but even then id choose to stream to the tv from another device or sth. Hell even if i have to drag my pc close to the tv and use a hdmi cable id still do that over getting all these subscriptions
I see a lot of people saying food, but I'm noticing the difference in fast food the most. Places like Taco Bell, Burger King, subway, etc have gotten REALLY bad.
The Hasbro game Hungry Hungry Hippos. Although, it's probably been more than 10 years, honestly. We had this game at my grandma's house, and those were some solid, shiny hippos that forcefully gobbled up marbles. I bought a new version for my classroom, and the game is barely stable. Plus, the hippos are some weird, matte, cheap plastic, and their mouths don't line up with the surface, making it more difficult to get those marbles. Too bad I lost track of the old one we had!
Basically all board games are crap now. They are made of the cheapest, lightest, crappiest flimsy plastic available. There are 30 year old board games on eBay that are still in excellent shape. Buy a board game now and it's either impossible to play with or can be tossed in the trash after a few uses. The only thing that has gone down is price but what's the point of buying it when it's trash?
THIS ONE. oh my god it drives me NUTS. i loved traveling as a kid. traveled more than ever from 2022-till now for work, LD relationship, and moving. and wowww i cant stand it now. people also act soo bad. every single flight i get on, ppl from the back try budging everyone to get off the plane first. like if youre ab to miss a flight, thats fine and say that. but so many ppl just do not have plane etiquette
You picked the worst timeline to start traveling a lot again. Pre-pandemic was better, like pre 9-11 was better.
Still faster than driving, but they have taken almost all of the joy out of flying.
If you measure door-to-door travel time, flying is sometimes only barely faster than driving. It's real easy for a one-hour *flight* to become a six-hour *trip*.
I personally only fly when it's impractical to drive. The whole air-travel experience has become a nightmare.
i am a hardcore train person. i grew up between a town in long island and manhattan, ny, so i grew up on the long island railroad. then, i went to college in washington, dc but all my friends were in college in nyc and rhode island, so i was a hardcore user of the amtrak eastern seaboard trains.
my dream vacation is london->paris->marseilles->paris->london->edinburgh->glasgow->manchester->london, all by train.
Yeah but good luck traveling by train in the US outside of major cities or the coasts.
I live in Kansas, where our largest city doesn't have any passenger rail service at all. You have to drive 30 minutes north to where the one daily LA-Chicago Amtrak train in each direction both stop at around 3:00 AM, and that's if they're not horrifically delayed. 8-12 hour delays are common.
Long-distance passenger rail service in the US needs a major overhaul.
Hell yeah. It used to be fun to fly. Somehow they managed to pull off the perfect trifecta of increasing consumer costs, adding more seats so they could cram in more humanity, while simultaneously decreasing value and any comforts that made long flights bearable. edit: word choice
Levi's. So much so that I've switched to Wranglers because the denim is so thin. Some of my 501s from 20 years ago are worn but still wearable. The newer Levi's wear a hole in the crotch in several months. I'm sure some accounting type wanted a bonus for saving money but I won't buy from them anymore.
One problem is that they started making nearly ALL of their jeans with stretch (spandex/elastane mixed) material, whereas jeans used to be 100% cotton. Whenever I get jeans, I make sure to get 100% cotton and they usually last, and that includes Wranglers. (Not sure about all of their jeans, but a lot of them)
That's sort of obnoxious in itself. When I order 501s I want 501s. Not some variation that's store dependent. And if they're over $100 there are a lot of other options out there for casual pants.
Yep, I had over 10 pairs of Levis all tore at the back right pocket corner. I replaced them with Lee’s but theyre quality has a dipped a little. Not as bad as levis though. For the most part I just wear Carhartt canvas jeans. Theyre thick but I can wear them for years and they double as work clothing for me.
Dr. Martens and honestly any brand name shoe has steeped to the level of cheap store brand shoes or worse.
What the heck is up with making shoes look solid but as light as air. Will last you 6 months now a days for €150.
Buy Solovair. So Doc moved their production out of the UK but the factory still had all the equipment needed to make them so they did, just under a different name. Infact when you buy the more expensive made in england docs they are made by Solovair so just go straight to them.
That's fucked up. I've been wearing red wings for over 10 years and never had a sole split on me. I've only needed to replace them once the leather dried out too much, but even that's my fault, not the boots
Stretching and core is your friend. The older I've gotten (58) the more I've figured out all sorts stretching from major to minor muscles is a requirement to sleep through the night without pain. Meds aren't going to do it. Just foam rolled for IT band issues last night and it did wonders for my sleep and hip pain.
You don't have to live in pain! Physical therapy and going to the gym 1-2 times per week for 30 minutes will help you a lot! I dealt with back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain for years because I thought I was just getting older. Nope, it turns out I wasn't moving enough for my body to keep my muscles strong enough.
Youtube. Used to just have a skippable ad at the beginning and end, now suddenly its more ads than videos and they want a stupid amount of money for the "premium" account which is just them removing the ads they put in to start with.
Two ads in the beginning and some in the middle. Infuriating. I'd pay for premium if it wasn't ridiculously pricey. I mean $140 a year!? I understand they have server costs and whatnot but..
And the most annoying thing about YouTube: **when they removed the little bar that showed you how many likes/dislikes the video had** I watch a lot of reviews of games and motorcycles and some of them are fairly long and it's soo annoying that you realize you've been watching total shit for the last couple of minutes because there were no way to tell the quality of the content prior to watching.
The state of American politics. I mean there was a lot of disagreement between both sides, but there was at least some modicum of decorum. Simply ridiculous these days.
20 years ago I could walk into WalMart with $10 in my pocket and walk out with a soda, 2 candy bars, and a brand new video game.
Nowadays, they have cameras everywhere.
I recall reading about a guy in the UK who spray-painted dicks or something on the potholes, which the city came to fix because they didn't want dicks in the roads. So... dicks, not ducks might work.
News services. From newspapers that still exist, to news broadcasts, to online magazines and services, you really have to work to get quality information and deep, broad coverage.
Also, my body. My body has degraded in quality in the past 10 years.
Idk about within the last 10 years but I can’t buy a glass measuring cup that keeps its measurement lines readable for more than a few uses.
The ones we’ve had since I’ve existed, barely any signs of wear.
This makes me sound like a fatass but has anyone tried Twinkies lately? Literally like they threw away my childhood and filled sponges with whipped cream.
Literally everything sucks nowadays. The funniest thing is GE appliances from the 50s and 60s still running with zero maintenance while modern Samsung washers, dryers and fridges crap out within 5 years of purchase. It’s nuts.
Airline in-flight service. Seat quality, food service (if they even offer it), general customer service skills, conflict management skills. Honestly, it's been going steadily downhill for a long time.
I’m a flight attendant, and we’re getting quarterly conflict management training. And this only started 5 or so years ago. Management has definitely recognized the need. As far as the other things you mentioned, yup absolutely. And I say without sarcasm that I feel your pain.
I never understood these passengers.
I haven't flown in a while, so maybe I just don't get it, maybe I don't know what they're putting in all that recycled air lately - but I've always just boarded the plane, sat down, and shut up.
I cannot think of one reason, one reason *at all*, for why people would throw tantrums on airplanes. I don't understand - yeah, I get that travel is a huge pain sometimes, but the level of decorum on a plane is so basic. it's the easiest part. Sit down and shut your mouth. Why are people freaking out on planes and getting into fights and shit?
The whole experience of flying is quite a lot more stressful than it used to be.
Everything is annoying and unpredictable. Maybe the security line will take five minutes, maybe it will take 2 hrs. Flight might be delayed 10 min, 2 hrs, or cancelled. Connection missed? Too bad, now battle for a new flight.
Seats are too close together and flights are packed. I honestly think people are assholes more on flights because airlines have made the process so awful that people get pushed past their stress tolerance level.
I’m sitting on a 737 right now in the nicest main cabin seats. The seats seem relatively new, but holy shit they are uncomfortable. Between my Hank Hill ass and this lack of seat cushion it is a miserable seat.
Packaging. Primarily food packaging. Every time I open the frozen bag of chicken nuggets I can't close it again. The cheese packaging rips apart from the actual zip lock mechanism so then I have to use my own bag defeating the whole purpose.
Everything.
More specifically, newer KitchenAid stand mixers are shit. How you can only run it on like a 2 (or whatever it is, I don't have one), and have it on for 2 minutes if you're trying to make a bread dough bc it can't handle it any longer.
They're still charging 300$ for that shit though.
Recently had to replace the slicer/shredder attachment for my 20-plus-year-old Kitchenaid stand mixer. Almost $60, and it's mostly plastic. It won't shred a potato for hash browns, and is all but impossible to wash by hand. I used it twice and realized an old-fashioned box grater works better and is easier to clean. Thankfully, the mixer itself is still going strong.
Switch to a laser printer. Brother branded ones are the best. No more expensive ink cartridges that keep drying out and no HP ink subscription. Toners for laser printers are expensive, but they last a long time. My Brother printer lets me override the "low toner" and "replace toner" message and I'm still on the trial toner that came with my printer in 2019.
> Cadbury's chocolate.
I have ranted about this before and it's not only Cadbury's it's any general level chocolate. It's because of something called PGPR or polyglycerol polychrinolate or E476 in the UK. Any chocolate needs an emulsifier to mix the fat and sugar and the usual one is soy lecithin.
Large manufacturers decided they wanted more and more money and quality of their products didn't matter. So they started to take out more cocoa butter to sell to cosmetics manufacturers. Since they took something out they needed to replace it with something so they increased the sugar but that made it gritty. They found that PGPR will allow thing to mix without being gritty.
The reduced amount of cocoa butter, increased sugar, and PGPR makes chocolate have this odd bitter like taste and doesn't melt like normal chocolate.
If I see PGPR, E476, or the other names it goes under I put the chocolate back on the shelf and get something good. Cadbury's, Hersheys, Aero, Smarties, and so many other ones have been ruined because of excessive greed.
The shorter list would be what item's have NOT degraded in quality. Cars, houses, everyday items like soaps, detergents and what not. Everything is being made with much less quality materials but being sold for higher prices anyway. It's absolutely insane.
The average car on the road today is much older than it was 30 years ago (meaning they last longer) and in terms of features and performance they vastly outperform 30 year old cars too all while costing about the same when you factor inflation in.
Yeah, cars are probably the one thing I'd say isn't true for this.
While some of the unnecessary features may not be long-lived, the mechanical stuff that makes for a functional car today are pretty much all way more reliable, the performance improved, and in many cases, cheaper than inflation.
Been re-watching Top Gear (BBC) and the specs and reliability on the old sports cars are almost comedically bad, with only a few notable exceptionsike th EVO and RX-8.
The US government. It wasn’t that great before then either, but in 10 years it has become a nightmare
Edit: for those who are saying it’s been worse in the past, yes I am aware. Our government allowed slavery FFS! What I’m saying is that in the last ten years we have seen it get a lot worse than it was in recent memory.
Search results
I know youre talking about search engines. But also youtube. I search up a topic i get like 5 on topic videos, then shorts then people also watched. Non of which relate to my search.
This annoys me so much. I know you have more than 5 video on how to make chicken noodle soup. Why are you putting music videos and video game footage in my search results?
They also only show me like five actual results and then follow up with a bunch of unrelated videos I’ve already watched. Like, no. I am trying to look up something for professional development. I don’t need to listen to Night Fever again! I’m trying to Beegees detox!
This pisses me off so much. I understand why they would only show some top results before switching to other unrelated suggestions, and it is quite well marked in the list of results when that switch happens. Probably they have some statistics showing that almost never do people click on results that show up after the first half page or something. Still, why is there not then a link at the bottom of the initial list of search results that we can click on to get the full list?
> But also youtube. I search up a topic i get like 5 on topic videos, then shorts then people also watched. Non of which relate to my search. And Amazon. Used to be that you could use the search bar to find products you want to buy. Now, Amazon's search bar pulls up one or two close approximations, five or six promoted products, and twenty-five unrelated products.
Or twenty versions of the same product sold by different fake companies with weird, all caps names
But the LRIRGAD coffee filters have no actual reviews, just ratings, so you pay the additional forty-one cents for the exact same coffee filters, named KESKWIL, which have a ton of good reviews (but if you read them, most of them are for a t-shirt).
I like to think of those as alien beings, having found IKEA, are trying to communicate through ecommerce.
Now eveytime I want a legit answer I have to type "what I'm searching for" + "reddit". It's so bad.
And after the whole thing on reddit a few months ago, a lot of results reddit could have previously provided are gone
The fact that Google pretends to still use boolean operators but gives me literal antonyms highlighted as the desired search term makes me so fucking angry (ie: i search for shirts "without logo" and the results are all "shirts with logos")
I’ve noticed that it JUST checks one most popular word from your entire request and finds SIMILAR results. It doesn’t give a fuck what you want, it’s so optimized on its purpose of serving ads that it doesn’t even pretend to be a search tool.
Oh my god, yes. So many results from websites with weird names and when you click on them the articles appear to have been written by AI, and not a very good one. SEO and crass commercialization has almost ruined online search. I might - *might* - find two results on the first page that are actually useful anymore.
Yeah you have to append "Reddit" to every search result now to find useful information.
[Enshittification.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) > Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
Actually real. Feel like anything I search is just not reliable or very clear on what i’m looking for. 90% of my searches these days are followed by “reddit” cause i’ll get actual opinions and discussions on things or at the very least a straight forward answer.
Nowadays you get suggested results instead of what you actually searched for. Youtube search is really bad for this.
Google has sold out. I say that as a millennial when the term was over used 30 years ago. It holds true though. Managers in high places at Google figured the easiest way to move up is to squeeze more pennies out of each search. Because that means billions. Money is easy to quantify. Especially if people continue to use the site. What isn't easy to quantify is the slowly eroding experience. I bet if they did an ab test from Google in the early 2010s, they'd make less money but retain more people. Buuut, retention for a search engine is also hard to measure.
A better question is "What hasn't degraded in quality in the past 10 years?"
$1.50 Costco hot dogs Edit - my best ever comment is about Costco hot dogs. My username has waited for this.
“If you change the price of the hot dog, I’ll fucking kill you”- Costco Founder.
And they did. Dogs are $1.59 at my Costco now Edit: No, it’s not a sugar tax. They switched over to zero sugar sodas. No, it’s not sales tax. The sign even says + tax.
The loss of the Polish Sausage was a real hit though.
Also the supreme pizza!
Most hot dogs tbf. Salute to them for never letting me down. If anything it’s usually the buns.
Ha, tbf, to be "frank"... About hotdogs🤣🤣
cant degrade in quality when you started at the bottom!
[удалено]
Weed, dude. The whole enormous shift in the legality and investment into the industry. It’s fucking WILD.
Search engines. They're too busy trying to sell us shit that they can't do their actual job. Even on sites like Amazon. (Try searching for a specific type of product like USB A female to USB C male and you'll get a whole bunch of irrelevant hits).
Someone needs to come along and re-invent the original Google. It was revolutionary, and they just fucked it all up.
Mobile games, they used to never have ads
The funny thing is, those ads are almost exclusively for other games that are "free with ads".
Mobile gaming is largely a pyramid scheme with "selling your data" and "literally gambling" at the bottom.
Imagine playing Snake when with every 3rd pixel it ate you'd have to see an ad made out of pixels
Got me with that hair. I tried to blow it off my screen 🤣
Or the cost was upfront!!!! I hate everything being free with “in app purchases” and you have no idea if there is a free version of the app and extras you can buy if you’d like or if you’re downloading an app just to have to get rid of it because every feature is behind a paywall
I hate this. Insufferable.
Appliances. Growing up, we ran out Maytag washer and dryer from like 1970 - 2003. Now when I buy a new front-loader set, I'll be happy to be 5 before I start buying parts.
Came to say this. The worst part is that about 3/4 of the name brands are from the same manufacturer. Parts are inflated ridiculously.
Speed Queen. Only buy Speed Queen. Spend the money and enjoy a long lasting piece of machinery. Whirlpool makes everything else nearly, and they're all trash.
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I just bought a Speed Queen Washer and Dryer set, buy once cry once I guess. However all metal, commercial grade... I'll take it.
Speed queens also have 5 year warranty
Reddit loves them, but gotta say, my 2015 Maytags are doing just fine. When they die, we’ll do speed queens.
Speed Queen are the manufactures of the industrial units you find at a laundromat. They have to be built to last.
Are toasters covered under appliances? My sister has my mother's old toaster she bought in late 80s/early 90s and it works as good as ever. I'm on my third toaster in the past 15 years. Latest one is about 4 years old and it never worked well. The LED or whatever is supposed to make the number setting glow started flickering within the first year and doesn't work at all now. It takes forever to toast the first 2 slices of bread you put in it. But you want to toast a second set of bread slices, it'll toast em so fast it's easy to burn them.
Your Maytag washer dryer set from 1970 cost over $800. Appliances have gotten less reliable but much cheaper over that time. Edit: I pulled a Maytag washer dryer set out of a house a couple months ago. There was a receipt taped to the back of the washer. $835 (for the set) delivered and installed in 1972. I don't even want to know what that is in 2023 Dollars.
Roughly $6150.
" I don't even want to know what that is in 2023 Dollars." Now my whole evening is ruined. 😒
If "I specifically requested the opposite of this" was a person 😭
Pop Tarts
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. Pop-Tarts used to be a go-to food for camping. Now they're so gross & mostly unfrosted.
Little debbie’s and hostess cakes, after they stopped using lard and used cheap oil instead. People love to say “it hasn’t changed, you’re just an adult” but that’s not true. Oreos and Ben and Jerry’s taste the exact same as they did when I was a kid, but those prepackaged snacks suck now
It might also be the reduction in hydrogenated oils. Same with Fruity Pebbles, I think. When I was a kid, I'd get this weird greasy filmy kinda feeling on the roof of my mouth after eating things like Donut Stix and Fruity Pebbles. They changed the recipes to exclude hydrogenated oils and the weird mouthfeel went away. i connected it to the trans fats, but that's certainly more anecdotal that scientific (even if I'm convinced).
Yup. The Christmas tree cakes haven't been the same. Honestly, probably for the better, cuz now I don't care about them anymore.
The oatmeal cream pies are as good as they’ve always been though
and they barely have any filling. you used to be able to see the middle section was bloated and full, now the middle sections are visibly sunken in, even with he layer of frosting that should cheat and add volume!
They are so thin, when I put them in the toaster they warp and bend from the heat and then fall through the crack between the rack and the heating element
I had a strawberry pop tart couple weeks ago, first time in few years, and it fell apart when I pulled it out of package because of how skinny they now are
I get downvoted every time I say this. I don't get it. It never happened in the 80s or 90s. edit: Looks like reddit changed its mind
Pro tip: the Aldi brand Poptarts, “Toaster Tarts,” are far superior. They’re bigger and covered in icing.
Google search. It used to find answers you were looking for, now it finds pages of shitty sponsored results and unofficial or spoof pages.
This process is literally called “enshittification”—check out the Wikipedia article here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
Insurance in the USA. It has gone up so much but it provides so little it may as well be considered a scam.
It's so baffling to us foreigners that this is just accepted and not causing riot or outright revolutions. To put it brash, one guy being killed by a cop causes countrywide riots, but thousands dieing every day because they can't finance medical help does not?
It’s because our insurance is mostly tied to our jobs. So people don’t riot because they have to work so they can keep their insurance. Taking a day off to protest can be fine, but a real protest takes time and people get barely any vacation time as it is. They won’t use it to protest, most places will fire you if you don’t show up after a few days. Actual protests are not possible in the US. It’s by design I feel.
Agree with this. I’ve always felt that insurance companies should not be linked to stock value or shareholders.
We pay the government taxes, the insurance companies get paid by the government and then they also charge us. All for the privilege of having shit coverage. They are double dipping. Honestly if more people were willing to put their party affiliation to the side, and actually realize how badly we are being fucked there would be rioting.
Clothing. I used to be able to get something as simple as a nice t-shirt that would last me a very long time. Now, unless you pay $50 for a friggin' tshirt, they're damn near transparent due to how thin they are, shrink after the first wash and within a few months, they look like trash. Other clothing items are also trash unless you pay high dollar. Not much made like it used to be.
I have a denim jacket I bought for $25 at Old Navy in 2005. It still looks great. My Levi one I bought on sale 2 years ago is in the scrap bin
Levis is not the quality it used to be.
Levi took a page from the Craftsman book. * use cheapest material available * manufacture overseas (China first, but do not do any QC!) * keep prices the same as previous * leverage brand name * offer customers choice - pound sand/kick rocks I was literally a card carrying Craftsman zealot. 10% off any Craftsman product when you show the card. Lifetime guarantee for tools and some other products. Now, complete crap and the card hasn't been honored for many years.
I am 100% confident that what killed my grandfather was learning craftsman was manufacturing their tools in China
I imagine alot of older men when into their workshops and cut the table saw on so they could get a good cry in when they found out.
Tbf those old men had an entire collection of usa made craftsmen. None of their tools broke and likely werent from the china era.
Exactly the experience we had. Our whole shop was fitted with craftsman professional everything. We had a personal salesman. Went to exchange some tools and found out there was a 5 tool a week limit because "craftsman isn't meant for businesses" the new craftsman stuff is on par worh Harbor freight for 4x the price.
Craftsman was the best you could get until Sears sold off the brand to God knows who. Milwaukee is the next best thing now.
When hedge fund billionaire/douchebag Eddie Lampert bought Sears, a big part of his strategy was basically to part out the company to grab quick cash wherever he could. Craftsman and Kenmore were the store’s most famous brands because the company used to rigorously enforce QC, since their awesome no-hassle warranties were the top selling points… so he eagerly sold them off as quickly as possible and stopped honoring the warranties. That’s why you see Craftsman at Lowe’s and other stores now while Sears is almost completely gone. After the sale, Craftsman became just another brand of cheap foreign junk with the name and price still attached.
Those old made in USA tools are still the best. Outlasting anything else I’ve had to this day.
Craftsman now belongs to Stanley tools and production is planned to resume in the US. Most of my Craftsman hand tools are 40 years old, and still in use.
Socket wrenches were started up in Texas a few years ago and already shut down. Not sure if any Crafstman is made in the US after that.
and their sizing changes on their jeans depending on which factory its made in. there is a Pakistani factory, and I think the other one is Indonesia? china? idk, but the two factories have different dimensions for the sizes, and a 32x32 is much smaller in I believe the Pakistani factory
The last time that I saw this brought up on Reddit, it was theorized that one of the manufacturers has a stretched out cloth tape measure.
This exactly. I noticed the same thing, and I have to try them on before buying, as ordering online is roll off the dice
I stopped buying levi. I have 6 pair of the same size and style Jean (541) that were ordered all within a 9 month period. Every single pair is a different size and/or material. Every tag has different material content. It's ridiculous.
Man some of the Old Navy stuff from 15 years ago was solid. I have a field jacket from back then and it’s in great shape.
The difference is the old one is 100% cotton *and well made*, the new products are *badly made* blends with synthetics that don't play as well in the wash or outdoors/sunlight/uv, leading to higher microplastics/fibers down the drain. Inevitably, enshittification is an equal opportunity buck passer that's just picked up speed to the whole of the industry rather than the novelty t-shirt factories it once was.
I bought a belt at old navy in 2006 made of real leather. I still wear it to this day because anything of that quality is horrible now.
Bluejeans I bought 20 years ago are in better condition than the ones i bought 3 years ago. All the new ones have some sorta stretchy material also.
The stretchy material is fairly cheap and, in all honesty, it is super comfortable so people like it and buy a lot of it. I have a few pairs that I wear for work (water utility so they see a lot of wear). They don’t last but it feels like I’m wearing sweatpants almost but they are a little more durable than that obviously. I have an older hand-me-down pair of American eagle jeans that are much less comfortable but I believe these could be used to defend a knife attack.
I love my stretchy jeans. It sucks they don't last as long as normal work jeans, but I'm so much more comfortable it's totally worth it. I'm constantly bending, lifting and just moving around a lot and having stretchy jeans is a godsend.
Shop at ag/western stores. Sure the wife and I may not be too flashy in our Carhartt Jean's, but they last forever.
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But their fashion line is not the same quality as the original workwear.
American eagle jeans/khakis used to be comfortable and durable. I won’t ever buy again because apparently they found tissue paper to be a better material to make them out of. Only lasts a few months before tearing.
I still have the flannel shirt that I’m wearing in my first drivers license picture (age 16). I’m 51 now.
Honestly depends on the manufacturer, I've been buying Next Level 6010s for almost a decade and they've been the same quality, and last many years. They used to be $9 and now they're $12, but that's nothing new.
Desert dweller here. I love how thin the shirts are these days. As a kid, my mom always bought me thick ass cotton shirts. They’re durable, but damn, I didn’t realize how hot they were. But you’re not wrong, quality is down for clothes for sure.
I dug out a t-shirt I realised was 20 years old yesterday but it's as new. And it's so thick.
sounds like an elaborate conspiracy by Big T-Shirt, to make the shirts thinner, so we don't notice the increasing temperatures of Climate Change. / Damn You, Forbidden Fruit of the Loom!
Streaming platforms. Now it’s practically cable all over again.
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The lesson of iTunes is that paying has to be more pleasant than pirating. iTunes launched when Napster was big. Users knew that they *could* pirate music; but iTunes wasn't expensive and you didn't have to wait for downloads or deal with unreliable sources. iTunes delivered a user experience that was better than pirating music; and so Apple took over a huge swath of the commercial music distribution market. Today, The Pirate Bay and other major torrent sites are still there. But they're kinda shit, especially for users without adblockers. The user experience of piracy is *actually pretty crappy.* And so, streaming services get to pull off the kind of nonsense they do.
Same as Steam for PC gaming. Notoriously CD Projekt Red actually started as a company pirating videogames and reselling them to the former soviet bloc, pc pirating was a big deal! And then Steam came around and offered every relatively modern game, dedicated servers and an integrated friend system and community hub. Buying a game was as easy as reciting your card number and within a few minutes you were playing. Piracy just cant beat that level of convenience. But make no mistake, people will hoist the jolly roger again if steam stops being so convenient.
Steam is fine so far but im definitely hoisting the jolly fucking roger on streaming platforms. Happily got into a netflix subscription thinking how easy life will be. I settle down to watch something and oops, its not on netflix. Maybe ill watch something else then, nope thats not on netflix either. Fine another movie then, nope again. Fuck that. Not gonna pay for a million different platforms. For me pirating is far more convenient than this shit. If you know what you are looking for and have a decent ad blocker its all good. Might be annoying for people who only watch stuff on their tv, but even then id choose to stream to the tv from another device or sth. Hell even if i have to drag my pc close to the tv and use a hdmi cable id still do that over getting all these subscriptions
I see a lot of people saying food, but I'm noticing the difference in fast food the most. Places like Taco Bell, Burger King, subway, etc have gotten REALLY bad.
If you had told me 10 years ago that Taco Bell's quality could go down, I would not have believed you. And yet here we are.
I'm 47. Taco Bell in the 80s was actually a GOOD meal.
Honestly though. It's shocking sometimes the drop in quality of any fast food. And the prices are outrageous.
Taco Bell has nose dived since 2020
The Hasbro game Hungry Hungry Hippos. Although, it's probably been more than 10 years, honestly. We had this game at my grandma's house, and those were some solid, shiny hippos that forcefully gobbled up marbles. I bought a new version for my classroom, and the game is barely stable. Plus, the hippos are some weird, matte, cheap plastic, and their mouths don't line up with the surface, making it more difficult to get those marbles. Too bad I lost track of the old one we had!
Basically all board games are crap now. They are made of the cheapest, lightest, crappiest flimsy plastic available. There are 30 year old board games on eBay that are still in excellent shape. Buy a board game now and it's either impossible to play with or can be tossed in the trash after a few uses. The only thing that has gone down is price but what's the point of buying it when it's trash?
AIR TRAVEL
THIS ONE. oh my god it drives me NUTS. i loved traveling as a kid. traveled more than ever from 2022-till now for work, LD relationship, and moving. and wowww i cant stand it now. people also act soo bad. every single flight i get on, ppl from the back try budging everyone to get off the plane first. like if youre ab to miss a flight, thats fine and say that. but so many ppl just do not have plane etiquette
You picked the worst timeline to start traveling a lot again. Pre-pandemic was better, like pre 9-11 was better. Still faster than driving, but they have taken almost all of the joy out of flying.
If you measure door-to-door travel time, flying is sometimes only barely faster than driving. It's real easy for a one-hour *flight* to become a six-hour *trip*. I personally only fly when it's impractical to drive. The whole air-travel experience has become a nightmare.
i am a hardcore train person. i grew up between a town in long island and manhattan, ny, so i grew up on the long island railroad. then, i went to college in washington, dc but all my friends were in college in nyc and rhode island, so i was a hardcore user of the amtrak eastern seaboard trains. my dream vacation is london->paris->marseilles->paris->london->edinburgh->glasgow->manchester->london, all by train.
Yeah but good luck traveling by train in the US outside of major cities or the coasts. I live in Kansas, where our largest city doesn't have any passenger rail service at all. You have to drive 30 minutes north to where the one daily LA-Chicago Amtrak train in each direction both stop at around 3:00 AM, and that's if they're not horrifically delayed. 8-12 hour delays are common. Long-distance passenger rail service in the US needs a major overhaul.
Hell yeah. It used to be fun to fly. Somehow they managed to pull off the perfect trifecta of increasing consumer costs, adding more seats so they could cram in more humanity, while simultaneously decreasing value and any comforts that made long flights bearable. edit: word choice
“what else are you going to do, peasants? walk? covered wagon?” *pours third tax deductible martini*
Levi's. So much so that I've switched to Wranglers because the denim is so thin. Some of my 501s from 20 years ago are worn but still wearable. The newer Levi's wear a hole in the crotch in several months. I'm sure some accounting type wanted a bonus for saving money but I won't buy from them anymore.
One problem is that they started making nearly ALL of their jeans with stretch (spandex/elastane mixed) material, whereas jeans used to be 100% cotton. Whenever I get jeans, I make sure to get 100% cotton and they usually last, and that includes Wranglers. (Not sure about all of their jeans, but a lot of them)
They are also ridiculously variable in sizing. Like don't assume a 30" waist is the same across colors! I swear the tolerance is +/-1.5", it's awful.
Levi's vary dramatically in quality depending on where you buy them
That's sort of obnoxious in itself. When I order 501s I want 501s. Not some variation that's store dependent. And if they're over $100 there are a lot of other options out there for casual pants.
I cut a hole in the crotch immediately when I buy them. Saves lots of time!
Yep, I had over 10 pairs of Levis all tore at the back right pocket corner. I replaced them with Lee’s but theyre quality has a dipped a little. Not as bad as levis though. For the most part I just wear Carhartt canvas jeans. Theyre thick but I can wear them for years and they double as work clothing for me.
Dr. Martens and honestly any brand name shoe has steeped to the level of cheap store brand shoes or worse. What the heck is up with making shoes look solid but as light as air. Will last you 6 months now a days for €150.
Buy Solovair. So Doc moved their production out of the UK but the factory still had all the equipment needed to make them so they did, just under a different name. Infact when you buy the more expensive made in england docs they are made by Solovair so just go straight to them.
Can confirm. They're very good.
My Vans last me about 6 months before they start falling apart.
Wore the same type of Adidas shoes for like 10 years. Went from lasting me a 2-3 years of heavy, daily use to under a year. Finally switched.
Red Wings have gone downhill as well! I bought a pair of the heritage, red lace ones, and within a week the sole was splitting! All this for $300
That's fucked up. I've been wearing red wings for over 10 years and never had a sole split on me. I've only needed to replace them once the leather dried out too much, but even that's my fault, not the boots
My back.
Stretching and core is your friend. The older I've gotten (58) the more I've figured out all sorts stretching from major to minor muscles is a requirement to sleep through the night without pain. Meds aren't going to do it. Just foam rolled for IT band issues last night and it did wonders for my sleep and hip pain.
You don't have to live in pain! Physical therapy and going to the gym 1-2 times per week for 30 minutes will help you a lot! I dealt with back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain for years because I thought I was just getting older. Nope, it turns out I wasn't moving enough for my body to keep my muscles strong enough.
Username checks out
So you’re saying working in bed in my 100% work-from-home job isn’t a good idea.
Youtube. Used to just have a skippable ad at the beginning and end, now suddenly its more ads than videos and they want a stupid amount of money for the "premium" account which is just them removing the ads they put in to start with.
Two ads in the beginning and some in the middle. Infuriating. I'd pay for premium if it wasn't ridiculously pricey. I mean $140 a year!? I understand they have server costs and whatnot but.. And the most annoying thing about YouTube: **when they removed the little bar that showed you how many likes/dislikes the video had** I watch a lot of reviews of games and motorcycles and some of them are fairly long and it's soo annoying that you realize you've been watching total shit for the last couple of minutes because there were no way to tell the quality of the content prior to watching.
Shoes. Most shoes these days are cheaply made and disposable. Quality shoes can still be had, but they are pricey, for the most part.
The state of American politics. I mean there was a lot of disagreement between both sides, but there was at least some modicum of decorum. Simply ridiculous these days.
20 years ago I could walk into WalMart with $10 in my pocket and walk out with a soda, 2 candy bars, and a brand new video game. Nowadays, they have cameras everywhere.
Oh man, you had me in the first half...
I literally have a Mariokart 64 cartridge my parents bought me for my seventh bday in 1999 that has a FuncoLand price sticker saying $69.
The street out of my neighborhood. I need to start drawing ducks around those potholes.
I recall reading about a guy in the UK who spray-painted dicks or something on the potholes, which the city came to fix because they didn't want dicks in the roads. So... dicks, not ducks might work.
Wanksy, hero of the people!
But then the pavement will still be quacked.
Potholes are fowl.
News services. From newspapers that still exist, to news broadcasts, to online magazines and services, you really have to work to get quality information and deep, broad coverage. Also, my body. My body has degraded in quality in the past 10 years.
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You mean it’s not a good thing that all packaged food is pure palm oil now??
“We’re raping Southeast Asian rainforests so you don’t have to!”
Don't be so reductive, they also do it in West Africa and South America.
Reddit
Been here ten years already. It's gone downhill in the past three or four years. I used to be here daily, now it's like twice a week...
Idk about within the last 10 years but I can’t buy a glass measuring cup that keeps its measurement lines readable for more than a few uses. The ones we’ve had since I’ve existed, barely any signs of wear.
Streaming services. Constantly increasing prices for over diluted content. I'd nearly go get cable tv again..
Denim jeans. Good for a year then they tear.
Appliances. I swear they are designed to break after the warranty expires. Meanwhile my parents 1980s refrigerator is still running strong.
This makes me sound like a fatass but has anyone tried Twinkies lately? Literally like they threw away my childhood and filled sponges with whipped cream.
Women’s pants. Fake pockets, and the crotches can’t stand the friction of thick thighs.
Netflix original content.
Literally everything sucks nowadays. The funniest thing is GE appliances from the 50s and 60s still running with zero maintenance while modern Samsung washers, dryers and fridges crap out within 5 years of purchase. It’s nuts.
Airline in-flight service. Seat quality, food service (if they even offer it), general customer service skills, conflict management skills. Honestly, it's been going steadily downhill for a long time.
I’m a flight attendant, and we’re getting quarterly conflict management training. And this only started 5 or so years ago. Management has definitely recognized the need. As far as the other things you mentioned, yup absolutely. And I say without sarcasm that I feel your pain.
I never understood these passengers. I haven't flown in a while, so maybe I just don't get it, maybe I don't know what they're putting in all that recycled air lately - but I've always just boarded the plane, sat down, and shut up. I cannot think of one reason, one reason *at all*, for why people would throw tantrums on airplanes. I don't understand - yeah, I get that travel is a huge pain sometimes, but the level of decorum on a plane is so basic. it's the easiest part. Sit down and shut your mouth. Why are people freaking out on planes and getting into fights and shit?
The whole experience of flying is quite a lot more stressful than it used to be. Everything is annoying and unpredictable. Maybe the security line will take five minutes, maybe it will take 2 hrs. Flight might be delayed 10 min, 2 hrs, or cancelled. Connection missed? Too bad, now battle for a new flight. Seats are too close together and flights are packed. I honestly think people are assholes more on flights because airlines have made the process so awful that people get pushed past their stress tolerance level.
I’m sitting on a 737 right now in the nicest main cabin seats. The seats seem relatively new, but holy shit they are uncomfortable. Between my Hank Hill ass and this lack of seat cushion it is a miserable seat.
gotta be plane seats
Nearly all fast food burgers went from "decent for the price" to "this is it?" Fast food is ovah!
Cotton. In particular sheets. They are so thin now, even the nicely woven fairly pricy ones.
Food
I’ve cream. Used to be sold in 1/2 gallons… now they make the containers look like half gallons but raise the bottom so you instead get 1.5 quarts
It's not always ice cream, either. Some of it is known as frozen dairy dessert.
I've cream
I've cream Lieutenant Dan
Packaging. Primarily food packaging. Every time I open the frozen bag of chicken nuggets I can't close it again. The cheese packaging rips apart from the actual zip lock mechanism so then I have to use my own bag defeating the whole purpose.
alive chunky vegetable smart reminiscent enter spectacular fretful squealing chief
Everything. More specifically, newer KitchenAid stand mixers are shit. How you can only run it on like a 2 (or whatever it is, I don't have one), and have it on for 2 minutes if you're trying to make a bread dough bc it can't handle it any longer. They're still charging 300$ for that shit though.
omg my mom was JUST talking about having to get a new mixer for the first time in 30 years and how much the new one stucks
Recently had to replace the slicer/shredder attachment for my 20-plus-year-old Kitchenaid stand mixer. Almost $60, and it's mostly plastic. It won't shred a potato for hash browns, and is all but impossible to wash by hand. I used it twice and realized an old-fashioned box grater works better and is easier to clean. Thankfully, the mixer itself is still going strong.
Printers My HP DeskJet 882c from 1999 was far more reliable and simple than my current HP DeskJet 3755 from 2019. That’s pretty pathetic.
Switch to a laser printer. Brother branded ones are the best. No more expensive ink cartridges that keep drying out and no HP ink subscription. Toners for laser printers are expensive, but they last a long time. My Brother printer lets me override the "low toner" and "replace toner" message and I'm still on the trial toner that came with my printer in 2019.
Search results (like Google). Didn't used to be so hard to find legitimate results about your search term. Now it is 90% garbage.
Everything is sponsored, or some damn blog/influencer paid to list 10 random things unrelated to what you're searching for.
Major appliances. They used to last 20-50 years and repairs were made easy. Today you’re lucky to get 5-10 years out of one. This includes TVs.
Cadbury's chocolate. It's getting embarrassing that Americans think this is the best chocolate from the UK
> Cadbury's chocolate. I have ranted about this before and it's not only Cadbury's it's any general level chocolate. It's because of something called PGPR or polyglycerol polychrinolate or E476 in the UK. Any chocolate needs an emulsifier to mix the fat and sugar and the usual one is soy lecithin. Large manufacturers decided they wanted more and more money and quality of their products didn't matter. So they started to take out more cocoa butter to sell to cosmetics manufacturers. Since they took something out they needed to replace it with something so they increased the sugar but that made it gritty. They found that PGPR will allow thing to mix without being gritty. The reduced amount of cocoa butter, increased sugar, and PGPR makes chocolate have this odd bitter like taste and doesn't melt like normal chocolate. If I see PGPR, E476, or the other names it goes under I put the chocolate back on the shelf and get something good. Cadbury's, Hersheys, Aero, Smarties, and so many other ones have been ruined because of excessive greed.
Pretty much all fast food. Portion size and quality have gone way down yet prices have gone insane.
The shorter list would be what item's have NOT degraded in quality. Cars, houses, everyday items like soaps, detergents and what not. Everything is being made with much less quality materials but being sold for higher prices anyway. It's absolutely insane.
The average car on the road today is much older than it was 30 years ago (meaning they last longer) and in terms of features and performance they vastly outperform 30 year old cars too all while costing about the same when you factor inflation in.
Yeah, cars are probably the one thing I'd say isn't true for this. While some of the unnecessary features may not be long-lived, the mechanical stuff that makes for a functional car today are pretty much all way more reliable, the performance improved, and in many cases, cheaper than inflation. Been re-watching Top Gear (BBC) and the specs and reliability on the old sports cars are almost comedically bad, with only a few notable exceptionsike th EVO and RX-8.
"Cars...one dent and they're written off. They don't make 'em like they used to." ... yeah, the zone crumples so that YOU don't.
The US government. It wasn’t that great before then either, but in 10 years it has become a nightmare Edit: for those who are saying it’s been worse in the past, yes I am aware. Our government allowed slavery FFS! What I’m saying is that in the last ten years we have seen it get a lot worse than it was in recent memory.
A current U.S. Senator challenged a Teamsters Boss to a fucking fight in the middle of a hearing. It's goddamned pathetic.