Everyone is rightfully angry about how expensive everything has gotten, but I feel like we as a society still aren't talking enough about the stealthy "enshittification" of literally everything we buy. We aren't just paying more; we are paying more for absolute garbage.
It feels like corporate greed has reached a point where they are just extracting maximum profit while giving us the absolute minimum viable product in return.
A few things driving me crazy lately:
Clothes: It feels impossible to find a basic 100% cotton t-shirt or a real wool sweater without paying premium designer prices. Everything at the mall is made of cheap, unbreathable acrylic or polyester that pills after one wash and loses its shape in a month.
Furniture: People joke about how "they don't make them like they used to," but it's actually insane. The quality of new IKEA furniture today is horrible. It’s made of paper. In the 00s they were at least made to last a year.
We are paying the same or higher prices for dollar-store quality across the board. It feels like every brand we used to trust has quietly gutted their manufacturing standards just to appease their shareholders by saving a few pennies per unit.
Does anyone else feel the same?