I never noticed that here but I have noticed that cell phones have a much longer lag so if you are trying to get someone’s attention, it will take half a second or so for them to hear you even if they’re in the same city. That’s pretty quantifiable versus the instantaneous connection with landlines. Except that cell phones are cheaper (for me at least) and portable so I’m not going back.
Public education in the United States.
This is almost certainly due to lack of adequate funding, but one example:
When I was in grade school, my parents simply had to pay for enrollment and show up for parent-teacher conferences. Today, schools require heavy parent involvement to properly educate children. I will do whatever is needed to assist in my kids’ education, but there’s always a little voice in the back of my head reminding me that MY parents didn’t have to do this crap.
Remote television news reporting.
These days most of it is Skype or something similar and the video and and audio quality is shitty.
On the other hand, that fridge at least is an ENORMOUS energy hog.
My grandmother’s wedding dress cost $35 in 1939. It was bought from a department store but clearly skilled hand work; the seams are cut to take advantage of the selvedge. I tried on $2000 dresses that were not as well made and didn’t have anything hand-done on them (Grandma’s dress has hand beading.)
Yeah, my brother is in the playground equipment business, and some of the stuff he sells is pretty awesome.
I’m 54. When I was in school, parental involvement included things like room mothers, who were women who made sure that there were some fun classroom activities, and the PTA, and the committee that had the carnival fundraiser every year. Mothers were expected to volunteer on an as needed basis for field trip chaperones, and of course mothers had to organize carpools or some other way to get the kids to school. Mothers were the crossing guards at the more dangerous intersections. Moms also did volunteer work throughout the school in areas like supervising the lunchroom and playground and library. A lot of work got done by mothers (and I don’t remember ANY fathers being involved, other than to build carnival booths and stands) and they didn’t get paid. Mothers also supervised homework. Occasionally fathers did this as well, but in grade school, it was mostly the mothers. I’m sure that the parents (especially the mothers) did a lot of stuff that I wasn’t even aware of when I went to school.
When more families started having both parents work, then schools could no longer get so many volunteers. I think that you underestimate just how much parental involvement there was when you went to school, because it was regarded as normal. Not every family got involved, of course, but we all knew that Sam’s mom would be in the lunchroom a couple of days a week, for instance.
Reported. (Not Lynn - the spam.)
I took care of the spam.
I’ve noticed both of these things - turn on tv, wait, tv finally comes on, wait, change a channel, wait; what the hell? Why is everything I do on my tv taking so long these days?
Was that a response or an order? 
You’ve reminded me of another one - furniture. My husband and I are still furnishing our house with cast-offs and used furniture with a few newer pieces mixed in, and the old stuff is so much sturdier and better-built than the new stuff, there isn’t even a comparison. I’m seriously thinking about buying solid wood furniture when we decide to buy new, because even though it is much more expensive than the Wal-Mart crap, you know it will last 10 times as long.
Also, houses. My husband has worked in the construction industry for quite a while now, and he won’t buy a new house because of the shoddy craftsmanship. Well, we might buy one if it was made by a high-quality builder, but not one of the dime-a-dozen cardboard houses being thrown up by the hundreds.
Was it tasty? 
MP3s are demostrably worse at transmitting the sounds recorded in the studio than previous methods of music conveyance.
I know speaker and amplifier fans think the vacuum tube versions are better than the modern versions
Seems like Stradivarious had some secret method that we still can’t duplicate in modern instruments.
Obviously, as you go further back, environmental degradation is reduced.
I think glass bottles for soda are better, but I’m not sure if they’re scientifically better.
I agree with you, and I think that might actually be scientifically quantifiable - glass is probably less reactive with the soda than plastic or aluminum, and I think glass holds the cold better than either other container, too, so you get a tastier, colder drink.
How about printers in terms of planned obsolescence? You can’t kill one of those old HP Laserjets, which is why they quit making them.
They did away with double headers??? I know I’ve been out of touch living far away from the Yankees but I didn’t realize this. <Phil Rizzuto> Holy cow! </Phil>
I was just about to mention this. It is true, but it is not a result of competition. In the old days the Bell System owned your phone and you just rented it. Therefore it was good to make the phones last forever. When people owned their own phones, it was expected that they’d buy new ones long before the old, high quality ones would break. I was working for Bell Labs at the time, and I saw a presentation on how we were decreasing the life expectancy of phones.
I heard that when it became possible to buy third party phones people rushed to do so - and then returned to AT&T often when they found that these phones were crap. People back then were used to phones lasting forever and assumed that the cheap ones would also.
[QUOTE=]
The amount [number] and size of lobsters and abalone.
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Many years ago, before the Internet, there were far fewer opportunities for me to be exposed to other people’s inability to differentiate between fewer and less, amount and number.
This is something I love about the fact that my transportation is a bicycle: I can take care of a lot of simple repair myself. I love tinkering and messing with my bike.
Re: the Op Question:
Manners.
Conscience.
Responsibility.
Ethics (somehow we didn’t need to define it and teach it to know it and have it and at every level of society).
…and of course, The Beatles. 
Nah, you’re not going to the right playgrounds. They do contain more plastic/vinyl so there’s more static electricity, but everything is also rubber coated so it’s not super hot or cold.
No, they’re just more rare now. Well actually I don’t think they’re scheduled ahead of time anymore, until the need comes up due to rain-outs.
I think this thread is fantastic.
I can’t remember the last theatre I’ve been to that monitored what movie you went to see or how many you’ve stayed for (unless it is a sell-out new release type movie).
Most sell a ticket and then take your ticket 10 feet away giving you admitance to over a dozen theatres. They don’t seem to care how long you stay.
Those thick cardboard egg cartons they used to use were much better at protecting eggs than the flimsy foam cartons they use now. You could drop the carton of eggs and maybe not break any of them. Not a guarantee, but more likely than today- any you don’t break now is purely luck.