503
Not your imagination: from backpacks to food, consumer goods are getting worse
(www.theguardian.com)
We didn't think it was our imagination.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
503 points (98.6% liked)
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Remember when it was called planned obsolescence? Pepperidge farm does.
But it's more than that. Planned obsolescence is only a part of the problem.
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Natural consequence of capitalism.
The telos of Capitalism is to produce goods for cheaper and cheaper prices, which eventually leads to poor quality and disposable "goods".
...or at that point, "bads".
Bads and disservices.
Resources and energy to produce things got more expensive. Income of the consumers didn't go up. So how do you keep earnings high? Lower the quality.
Don't forget that they ALSO raised prices. By much more than their costs temporarily rose to. And then never lowered them again.
I dont think it got more expensive to make. They just want to squeeze every penny. Because shareholders.
CEOs get a lot of hate for this kind of thing, but the shareholders get away with it. When are people gonna blame them?
Yeah like nobody names the shareholders who sued UnitedHealthCare for temporarily approving more insurance demands after the CEO's death. They were not happy to lose money and sued after ! WTF ! But someone made the decision to sue and others approved it who is THAT inhumane?
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That isn't the driver, it's their cover story. The second there was a hint of any societal/logistics issue, corps slammed that price gouging gas pedal down to 1000mph and kept ot there. Now, every once and a while, when they "learned a lesson" speed goes down to 800 or so for a come weeks and then resumes at 1200 mph. They won't stop until they are regulated by governments
Eating is a chore for me and I thought it was because of depression. Turns out the food just tastes like crap because it is crap. Score!
I've recently started having fast food occasionally after not touching it since before COVID. It really is fucking terrible and absurdly expensive. Except Taco Bell, which is also fucking terrible but at least it's relatively cheap still.
Fucking Uniqlo, they used to have the best basics. All my underwear came from them. Of the pack I bought 8 years ago I still have undies, the more recently bought ones all started getting holes within a year.
They also refused to back out of Russia when they invaded Ukraine and everyone else was closing up business there. They went on my shit list way back then.
I’m sure lots of those businesses probably just did it temporarily and went back for that sweet imperial cash, but the brazenness of Uniqlo giving zero fucks seemed like a bad sign.
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Man if even mainstream news like the guardian are talking about it you know it's gotten awful.
I've actually noticed quality of textiles on IRL shelves going back up since COVID. If you're buying from Temu or something, then yes, it will be cheap. In a direct counterexample, cars get more and more luxury and huge all the time.
Food is a thing, and it's basically because you can't taste it in the store, so it's bred more for looks.
Cars get more expensive and techy, but from what I've seen the plastic-y interiors are nowhere near as sturdy as they once were.
As a modern car hater, interiors are the one thing that have gotten significantly better as long as you exclude replacing physical buttons with touch screens. All the touch points in modern cars feel so much nicer and more premium than a car 20 years ago. Take a look through Google images of economy car interiors from the 2000s and the amount of gray plastic is shocking. My 1992 Jaguar has a debatebly worse interior than a modern Kia.
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Food is, indeed, a thing.
Forget that part, homie is over here breeding food….
Do not the food
Big if true
quality of textiles on IRL shelves going back up
Because the people buying in a physical store, care more about quality than the regular online shopper does.
Sure there's also good brands online, but most big ones are also seeing tremendous declines in recent years
Which gets to the real meat of the issue: In some categories, people don't want good stuff, they want cheap crap they can throw away, and then buy again for another dopamine hit. Similarly, new cars are getting more and more expensive, because anyone that's not loaded buys them used, and it's a k-shaped economy.
Markets have had all kinds of unfortunate features, which on Lemmy need no introduction, but outside of the most extreme monopolies, they're pretty flawless at delivering the kinds of products people are shopping for.
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They say buy from smaller brands, but the sources of resources and commodities often is the same. So the companies with the most buying power end up effecting the quality of other company products. More ways to get trickled on.
I say it so often that the people around me are getting sick of it: Nothing Works Anymore.
This is the second time you posted it in this thread even lmao
Very annoying they giving Cory Doctorow credit for the term Enshitification for a book he made in 2022 for a term that was around years before he "made" the term.
I'm just amazed people don't say "crapitalism".
Ohhh, that’s a good one!
To give Cory credit, he was also one of the first people to use it in online forums, years earlier.
He is quite open about the fact that he didn't invent the term
Edit: just looked it up in my copy of the book, and there he says he coined it. But I'm pretty sure he posted somwhere that it's possible that he grabbed it up somewhere. otoh, multiple people coming up with a word happens all the time
I say it so often, that it has become a mantra: Nothing works any more.
I've noticed this quite a bit. I have a couple tshirts I bought for $2 on clearance when I worked at JcPenis. They're still good 15 years later. But anything I bought in the last few years just falls apart. The irony is, the tshirts I bought in Japan last year for maybe $8 each are built like tanks even though they're made in China (Uni Glo lol).
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I work in manufacturing and I have seen the quality of raw materials degrade substantially since covid times. We expected it to be a dip but no, it has just continued to get worse.
we already know
I've had this conversation with a few people in the last week. I'm fine paying for quality but I just can't find it anymore. I'm just about at the point where it's not worth buying anything new since it's not going to last any longer than used.
Please post the link for Keyana’s site so they can be supported directly. They’re doing some amazing write-ups detailing how different things have gotten worse and why.
I was just saying how I remember back in the day you could get nice quality jeans, like 99-100% cotton, normally priced. But now the jeans I used to get are considered “luxury jeans” and cost over $200. No exaggeration because I’ve been on the hunt for moderately priced, good jeans for years now
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