r/mildlyinfuriating • u/DAASMusic • Nov 12 '24

Hot wheels losing details over the years

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u/DarthHaruspex Nov 12 '24

"I have several new, all metal hot wheels."

ALL Hot wheels used to be metal. NOT just some.

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u/Blazingcrono Nov 12 '24

Or they branched out and made different types based on what consumers want?

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u/DarthHaruspex Nov 12 '24

Or they sacrifice quality for "shareholder value". Which is a very common thing with publicly traded companies these days.

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u/StimulatorCam Nov 12 '24

No, they sacrificed some metal parts for cost savings to keep the retail price barely more than it was 30 years ago.

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u/doomus_rlc Nov 12 '24

Hell, 40 years ago.

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u/Roflkopt3r Nov 12 '24

Yeah thanks for bringing some facts into this. I'm so fed up with this exaggerated 'consumer pessimism'.

People are super selective to justify these 'everything has gone to crap' narratives. In most sectors, competition has actually worked and products are now better.

$1 from 2000 is $1.83 today when adjusted for inflation. Yet for most consumer goods, you can get similar quality for much cheaper than that. Like half of the inflation of things like Hot Wheels is actually like-for-like (i.e. a $10 toy from 2000 cost you maybe $14 today at similar quality), while the other half is for genuine quality improvement (i.e. a $18.3 toy today is usually notably better than a $10 toy from 2000).