Why everything you buy is worse now

From clothes to tech, why is everything so poorly made?

Maybe you’ve noticed: In the past 10 years everything we buy from clothes to technology has gotten just a little bit worse. Sweaters are more likely to tear. Phones are more likely to break. Smart toasters and TVs burn out and die after only a few years. It might seem like consumer products just aren’t built to last anymore. What’s going on?

Unfortunately (and fortunately!), part of the problem is us. For decades, we’ve been conditioned to buy, buy, buy, and today it’s normal for many consumers to shop for new clothes at least once a month. In order to keep up, many companies have to prioritize making things in the fastest and least expensive way possible. To do that, they cut corners with materials and labor. In turn, quality suffers, which leaves consumers with a lot of crappy things.

The story with technology is a little different. And the biggest difference is that while no one in fashion is saying you’re not allowed to sew a new button on a shirt, many tech companies have actually made it impossible to repair their products.

The good news is consumers have a surprising amount of control over this situation. Watch the video to learn more.

For more on the right to repair bill in New York State there are some articles here:

While I didn’t spend much time on Fast Fashion for this piece, I did love these articles:

This article from Vogue did a great job breaking down what things actually costs:

[Vox]

Have you bought something recently that kinda sucks? Tell me about it in the comments below. I love to complain about things.
—Kim

[janicefrantz]

Our office replaced a paper cutter because we'd been using the same one for 20 years. The new didn't cut as well as the 20 year old one - even after 20 years of daily use. Needless to say, the new and improved unit was returned, and the original is celebrating its 21st year in faithful service.

[nathandoll.]

I wish more people were as upset as I am about planned obsolescence

[whitslack]

I *want* to buy expensive things that are *good* and last for *decades*, but the trouble is that most expensive things these days are just as crappily made as the cheap things, and I can't tell how long any given thing will last, so I'm disincented from buying the expensive things. Maybe companies should start offering longer warranties if they want people to believe their products will really last.

[lara-cekg]

I hate polyester. And it can be hard sometimes finding 100% cotton shirts at your local store. It makes me so angry

[friedbaconsizzles]

As someone who used to do Appliance repair, all I can say is if you want your appliance to last more than 2 years, buy something that isn't "Smart". Your Refrigerator does not need a screen on it, in fact, anything with more buttons/interfaces, just look at it like it's just more buttons that can go bad, and the more there are the chances they go bad increase.

[effinloaves]

I remember taking an environmental ethics class in college where I learned that companies carefully calculate the shortest amount of time a product can last for the consumer to have to replace it often while still having faith in the company's products

[dotsontheglobe]

Here's an idea that we floated in my sustainable economics class:
Manufacterers are *required* to take back their products when they reach the end of their life span. Would this incentivize them to make thoe products last longer so they didn't have to store them or pay for disposal? Make them easier to reuse? Make them easier to get the parts and components back?

[DonLee]

Companies say a lot of greenwashing marketing, but in the background they are doing the opposite. 30 years ago, in school I learned the 3 R's. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Companies will tell you the same thing, but remove the "reduce" part (of course). They even give you a bin to recycle old clothes. Which ends up being just thrown away of course. Decades ago, they already knew how to make light bulbs last forever, but that would hurt the industry, so they made bulbs that would fail much sooner.

*All of this neglects one of the worst parts of planned obsolescence: the overwhelming waste. We don’t have infinite resources, and even when we recycle the old models and items, we still produce emissions and non-recyclable components. Planned obsolescence only further exaggerates resource depletion and pollution*

[kangaroonick]

Planned obsolescence needs to be illegal. Enough is enough.

[dostagirl]

I finally did what I'm sure lots of people have done - clear out the "I'm gonna lose weight one day and fit back into it" items taking up space in my closet. Some of these garments were bought back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The difference in quality is astounding. The feel of the materials, the thickness, the stitching, etc.... And these aren't fashion house items - just clothes from mall stores like Lerners NY, American Eagle, Old Navy, and the like. Meanwhile, I'm buying brand new clothes and having the hems drop out of the trouser in a matter of days, the material on blouses is so thin I have to wear a cami under everything, and there's loose thread everywhere or bunching where the material was sewn too quickly and without oversight in quality control. I use to be able to keep an item for a decade or more, now it's amazing if it lasts an entire year or two. You can't even make the statement of "I'd be willing to pay more for better quality" because there's none to be had. Even brands that charge an arm and a leg for the label are being made with cheap materials and inferior skills. You're literally just paying more because it has a fancy name attached. And it seems that if an item IS made well, as soon as it catches on and becomes popular, the inevitable course is that the quality will degrade as the small start up can now outsource and take short cuts to inflate their profits while banking on continued purchasing based on the trend or reputation of the first gen products.

[Nonagus]

I'm still wearing the same nike hoodie I wore in 2007. Still good as new, probably been washed a million times. But If I buy anything form Nike now, it'll last one wash before it's ruined. Glad to know I'm not the only one who was going through this phenomenon.

[hayleyruth]

15 years ago my mom was having work done on our home. She wondered if she should have the original 1950s house fan replaced since it was so old. The contractor said "honestly, I could hook up a brand new one right next to the old one and have them both working and I guarantee you the new one will breakdown before the original fan does." As far as we knew, the original fan is still there and doing its job.

[logan]

If you have 20+ year old washing machine, don't throw it away. There is nothing like now to have such a reliability.

[cannibalbananas]

Another way to take back some control is the internet. When my washing machine broke, the company wanted $150 to send someone out to look at it. Just look at it. I watched a few YouTube tutorials cuz you couldn't even find the schematics online, and fixed it myself for $25.
Also, yes and no, stuff is made for us, but it's mostly made for companies to make money.

[bodricpriest]

It's the intentional lack of modularity that gets me, time was I could replace a battery or a speaker or whatever, now they're always integrated in such a way as to make repairs intentionally impossible.

[OCooper]

Someone once said "in the common sense of the word, we're very materialistic, always wanting more material goods, but in the true sense of the word, we aren't materialistic enough, not putting value in the materials goods we have". That resonated with me..

[TrevorLyons]

In grad school for materials science and engineering we had a seminar presentation about the business side of a professor's research. He had developed a ceramic that coated metal which strengthened and decreased the wear on mechanical parts. They had a deal lined up to apply this coating to the parts of a washing machine. It would have done something like double the lifetime of a washing machine. The CFO vetoed the deal at the last minute because it would have ended up losing the company more revenue through their repair business than they would gain by selling a better product.

[themr_wilson]

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months"
- Oscar Wilde