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Why The Quality Of Everything Is F*cking Trash Now
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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I think this is due less to planned obsolescence than people want to believe. I'd argue it's as much due to market pressure. People want to buy cheap things so companies start making things cheaper.
Naww... it's about the infinite growth. "Shrinkflation, planned obsolescence, and enshittification" all describe aspects of it.
There are very few (you can probably count them on your hands) companies that don't do it, such as Arizona tea. The worst offenders are publicly traded companies because they need to show that "infinite growth" to investors.
I think it's both. Otherwise trash shipping companies like TEMU wouldn't have become so incredibly popular. A lot of people are basically NPCs which like to mindlessly consume stuff. The cheaper the better.
Shopping is a hell of a drug
Because they were conditioned to be that way.
It’s true. My own husband looks at cheap garbage and thinks it’s “nice”. I’m just like, you can tell you were raised on cheap Walmart furniture. I was poor but we thrifted real wood. I wasn’t allowed to buy cheap clothes (only made to buy less of them) because they didn’t want my clothes to look like shit after a wash.
Don’t buy your kids crap clothing crap food or have them sleep in a room of crap. Buy them high quality just buy them less.
In case of real, immediate need, buy what you can afford. My parents love that awful store and I have a deep loathing of it, but in a pinch, I surely will. But people should know Walmart name brands are of lesser quality, because Walmart negotiates very low wholesale prices, and don't really pass along the savings, anymore.
Yea well, they are trying to hide how badly our money has deflated. Can’t buy cotton clothing only plastic. Can’t buy real chicken only chicken that went through a chemical wash.
In fact you can buy both cotton clothing and air-chilled chicken. Those are two things I focus on buying. And not because the chlorine level in water-cooled chicken is dangerous, it's because the water retention prevents better browning.
Salaries are so low it’s a race to the bottom for every product. Anyone can design a toaster that works, but it takes an enshittification engineer to make one that barely works.
Salaries are low, but this is a trend that's been going on for decades. Since long before the current affordability crisis.
Wealth inequality has also been a long slow march. The fact is almost nobody can afford a basic standard of living from minimum wage in the 70’s: American-made cotton clothing, appliances that last 30 years, real local food that doesn’t make us sick, on and on… It’s not even that the products are cheaper it’s that they’ve also become less ethical. If you shop for a regular organic cotton USA-made T-shirt it’s like $80. What was once within reach is now a luxury with a cheap surrogate.
Thankful for someone else using the tshirts. I tell people this and they get so mad. $80? They say. I’m like… yea think of how much goes into that shirt! How much would it cost if you made it? If you want good quality that lasts even a tshirt will cost you $100. Our dollar is near worthless.
Agree. People buy shit for close to nothing and are then shocked that it's worth nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Makers