So there’s all of that, there’s inflation, there’s shrinkflation, there’s McDonalds saying they’re getting rid of free refills…
Would anyone care to weigh in with some examples of businesses, products or services that aren’t going downhill in quality or what they provide to customers? Or are we really racing toward the bottom these days with little to stop the descent? To me, it feels like consumers are being preyed upon more than ever.
I find many things are more reliable now than in the past. Cars, boat engines, even computers. Things you couldn’t count on in the past no generally work as advertised reliably. My battery operated lawn mower is leap years ahead of one I owned 6 or 7 years ago.
Maybe, but your example of losing free refills at McDonalds doesn’t outrage me.
My home internet isn’t getting any BETTER, but it seems to be about the same adequate quality for the last several years. And the price hasn’t changed since 2021. So that’s something.
Televisions. I’ve gone from black & white to 100-pound NTSC (Never The Same Color) sets to my present TV, a 55" OLED inch-thin beauty. That’s not even the latest innovation.
Automobiles. I got an AAA membership in my 20s because the used cars that were all I could afford broke down on the side of the road so frequently. My PHEV today has hugely better equipment and tires, a million more safety features, a thousand computers, a complete entertainment system instead of an AM radio, better mileage just on the gas side, and will last ten years with nothing but regular maintenance.
As for services, I believe economists have observed that services offered by barbers and hair salons appear to be very consistent over the long term (many decades), regardless of the economy or advancements in technology.
For some of these examples, like cars and TVs, I have a “yeah, but…”.
It’s true that car engines are great these days - much more reliable and capable than in the past, but it seems to me it’s at a cost. The cost being greater complexity (you can’t really work on a modern car yourself as one could years ago), being locked into certain proprietary relationships for service and again, the loss of privacy through data harvesting.
TVs may be better (I don’t really know), but from what I read there are also a lot of privacy issues with modern sets. There also seems to be reason to believe a lot of newer appliances (washing machines, fridges) are much less reliable and robust than in the past.
As for my example of McDonalds and their getting away from refills… It doesn’t “outrage” me either because I’m not personally affected (I haven’t been to a McD in a long time). But it’s an example of a service / product that was previously offered and is now being pulled back.
I’m tempted to chalk a lot of this up to the internet having trained us to expect a lot of things for free, and businesses having to respond by finding other ways to generate revenue. But I don’t think that accounts for all of what we’re seeing. I sense a desire by business to cut and cut (Boston Market getting rid of napkins, for example) and invent fees (banks, airlines) rather than attempt to capture market share by delivering value of some kind.
I recently quit a business that was doing all of those things. They charged customers for anything they could think up and treated employees like robots. It appeared to have been an effort to put good numbers on the sheet for a future sale. Whatever the reason, there wasn’t much attempt at providing other than the bare minimum they could get away with. All in in all, it feels different to me today than in the past when a company would certainly try to minimize costs and streamline, but they knew they still had to provide the goods.
Something that is a definite improvement recently: All the grocery stores in my area are actively switching from traditional plastic wrapping to paper and cardboard. Like, five years ago a half kilo of carrots was in a clear plastic tub sealed with shrink wrap. Now it’s in a small paper sack stapled at the top. Quality of the produce is exactly the same, but a lot less plastic waste. This is a big positive switch in my view.
Edit to add: I’m talking about the stuff they pack themselves, or have packed for them specifically. Manufactured processed products still use too much plastic. And meat products are still sealed for hygienic reasons, unless you go to the counter and get something fresh in butcher paper. Nevertheless, the waste reduction is still meaningful.
I was just observing this morning, as we drank our espresso shots, that Peet’s Coffee has remained reliably excellent for the twenty or thirty years we’ve been going there.
I visited one of their cafes for the first time while on vacation in Petaluma in about 1997 or so, and was amazed that a chain coffee place could pull an espresso so perfectly. Here it is 2024 and the espresso is still just as sublime as ever. Way to go, Peet’s.
Bigger? Possibly, although if you could shave with it I would bet it’s too thin to be much use.
The mention of grocery stores makes me think of how tiny grocery stores were when I was growing up. They were the size of a today’s CVS. Fresh fruit and vegetables were season-limited. They carried 10,000 items instead of 50,000.
And restaurants are infinitely better. I never had pizza or Chinese food until I was in college … and in Boston. Menus in the 50s and 60s were small, bland, and repetitive. Cuisines from other cultures took decades to infiltrate. I remember when the first local Indian restaurant opened, not until the late 70s. There’s no comparison.
And medicine may have as well been just invented in the 1950s. There were maybe three pills and two vaccines. Everything else was bandages.
I don’t understand the pushback from some. Something is a thousand times better than before but is inferior because it has some flaws rather than being perfect? I don’t buy that. We gripe about computers all the time. So what? We have computers!
Houses have gotten dramatically better from a building technology and energy efficiency standard. I feel like we’ve finally gotten home building pretty sorted–reliable, doesn’t trap moisture and rot, and easy to heat and cool. Included in that category are induction cooktops, which are the bees knees.
Cars–yes, expensive, but so so much better than when I was starting to drive (1982). I thought my friend’s GTI was the shit–it had off the top of my head 108 HP. None of our cars at the time could reliably go 100,000 miles or drive 70 mph without terrifying you. My 2010 Dodge 1500 just turned over 200,000 miles without too many hiccups and our new EV is gorgeous, 500 HP, AWD and basically cost the same as my truck in adjusted dollars.
This. Most mechanical and electrical things I own today work better, more reliably, and have a longer life span than things did when I was a kid. Remember manual chokes on cars? And having to pump the gas pedal some magical number of times before the engine would start? And even then it was a crap shoot whether it would even start on the first try? And then you had to sit and wait for it to warm up and defrost the windows?
To hell with that noise. Now to start my car I push a botton on a little box that sits in my hand while I’m comfortably sitting in my warm dry kitchen enjoying the last half of my cup of tea. By the time I go out to the car to leave the engine has been running for 10 minutes and the cabin is nice and toasty. I’m not a fan of some modern car features – touch screen controls for systems like climate can go straight to hell – but overall vehicles are exponentially more refined and reliable then they were even a generaton ago. And much safer, too.
I used to have to mix gasoline and oil together to fuel my weedeater, chainsaw, leafblower, and hedgetrimmer. Different ratios for each, so 4 different gas cans (actually, old Gatorade bottles worked well for this). Then, if the infernal machine hadn’t been ran in a while getting it to start was guranteed to be a maddening experience. Now I have one battery that runs all of those machines as well as my lawn mower so “fueling” the machine and getting it running simply involves removing the battery from the charger, clipping it onto whatever tool I’m using, and pushing a button. The entire process is 10 seconds tops and gurantees reliability and utmost ease of use. For tasks like blowing off my porch and driveway I used to spend more time getting the blower ready and running than actully using it. Those days are no more, thank God.
Light bulbs used to last a few months at most. Now they last for years – and cost almost nothing to operate, to boot.
Gimmicky stuff like free refills may be dying off but the vast majority of stuff we get at chain restaurants or the grocery store is the same as its always been. A Big Mac is the same sandwich is was 30 years ago. Same with a Arby’s roast beef sandwich or a bowl of Taco Time mexi-fries or I’m sure many other fast food items. (I’m not a connoisseur of fast food so my experience there is limited. But the fast food I do partake in hasn’t changed in decades.)
Most packaged food in the grocery store is pretty much the same as it has always been. A can of Campbell’s condensed soup is the same stuff you would’ve bought 30 years ago. Same with a package of Top ramen or box of Wheaties or a can of Wolf chili or a Hungry Man dinner or Lays potato chips or or or or or or. There are more options today for sure, which is a damn good thing, but almost all of those basics haven’t changed with the caveat that shrinkflation is obviously a thing and some portion sizes or package quantities have been reduced.
Building materials have improved dramatically. Modern metal roofs can last the life of a house, same for vinyl windows, manufacured meterials like cement board siding and corain countertops are often far superior to wood or previous options like formica. Copper and glavanized steel used to be the standard choices for home water supply lines with cast iron the choice for drain pipes. All clunky and difficult to work with. Now we have PEX for supply and PVC for drains. Much, much easier to use and longer lasting as well.
I think the list of the products and services that have gown downhill in the last couple of decades pales in comparison to the list of what has gotten better or, at least, not gotten worse.
Edit: I see most of this list has been mentioned already. That’ll teach me to post before reading the thread. Maybe.
You, and a few others, have been comparing how things are today with how things were many years ago. But I don’t think that’s what the OP is talking about. In mathematical terms, it’s about the instantaneous rate of change (or the derivative) being negative, indicating that currently things are headed in a downward direction.
I will echo that PEX plumbing is one of the miracles of the modern age. There are so many aspects of the building trade that have advanced by leaps and bounds since I started in it.
Cellular service. I can’t recall the last time I had a dropped call, or couldn’t get a signal anywhere in my town. Even on road trips, I haven’t experience any dead zones.
I don’t even know if my current phone has ever experienced “zero bars”. At worst it drops from 5G to LTE
I’ll let the OP tell us what was intended. (As if the OP’s intentions ever lasted for more than three posts in any thread.)
Most of the complaints are more whining than real. Shrinkflation has been happening for decades. People used to complain about it, and then when inflation stopped and the immediate need vanished so did the complaints and peoples’ memories.
Yes, personal service is often vanishing at some places. Making up for that is virtually instantaneous delivery of anything you can point to. Complaining about a minus while not mentioning a plus may be human nature, but it’s not a convincing argument about the world.
In times past when we needed something, anything, we basically had two choices: we found what we wanted in a local store, or we found it in a catalog which meant sending in a paper check and waiting 6 to 8 weeks for hopefully the right item to arrive. For us small-town denizens, oftentimes driving to the “next town over” – an hour away in good traffic – was necessary for basic household stuff. The Wal-Mart invasion of rural America was actually a godsend for a lot of people in that situation.
For semi-obscure stuff like used auto parts we had the GOB / FOAF network and basically had to hope for the best. Sometimes that involved driving to the next town over. Some companies like JC Whitney were helpful but not all-encompasing.
Now we have the internet. I can buy almost anything I want while sitting on my couch and it will be aitting at my front door in a few days, at most. Right now I’m on vacation and have realized I really could use a long extension cord with USB outlets as well as the standard household plugs on the end. Pre-internet my options would be severely limited: I could hobble something together from bits found at the local hardware store or hope my local Wal-Mart or K Mart had something approximating what I need. Instead I just went on Amazon, ordered something that will work perfectly for what I need it to do, and it will be sitting on my porch when I get home.
My wife uses weird, exotic hair care products. Before the internet she’d be stuck with Wal-Mart’s options or whatever she can get at a local barber shop or have to drive 3 hours to a local beautician supply store. Now, she can get whatever she wants.
I think despite advances in how things are made and done, we are currently getting less and paying more. Sometimes we pay in more money, sometimes in accepting onerous conditions such as data harvesting.
Someone said houses are being built better, and I have no doubt that’s true. But it’s also true housing (both owning and renting) costs more overall today and I don’t see that trend reversing. Same for a college education, and I think, same for McDonalds when we once were able to get refills and now we must pay more.
Traveling by air is safer and more reliable than ever, and it certainly costs less than it did years ago. But they keep inventing fees for things like luggage and the airlines seem to complain they can’t stay in business without the ability to do such things. Call it whining if you like, but to me it’s a problem.
What does that mean? Are you talking about this thread, or do I have a pattern?
