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The nature of e-commerce, which is projected to reach almost US$6,5bn by 2029, means that consumers oftentimes can determine the quality of their purchase only after they receive the order. And the results aren't always great.
So Reddit user Flaky_Show6239 decided to stir up some nostalgia and asked everyone on the platform to list the products and services they believe were better in the past than they are now.
From fast food to clothing, home appliances, and beyond, continue scrolling to check out the entries that have been mentioned the most.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Politicians. It used to be if you sexually assaulted someone or were a felon your political life was pretty much done.
Odin Schmidt 4 months ago
Used to be if you tried to overthrow the government you were arrested for treason and if convicted, the penalty was death!
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#2
Almost anything that demands a subscription where it could previously have been bought outright.
The Other Ben 4 months ago
I'm waiting for my DVD/Blu-ray player to require a subscription to play the media I actually own
#3
Refrigerators. Washing machines. Hell, any major appliances. Planned obsolescence is built in, so you’re spending the same amount of money, but getting a shittier, more unreliable product that will only last you 2 or 3 years. Because. Because corporate greed, and because corporate dickheads don’t give a f**k about you or the f*****g planet.
Liz The Biz 4 months ago
This is one of my biggest pet hates. Up until about 20 years ago, if an appliance broke down you wouldn't think twice about getting it repaired so it would last for years, sometimes decades. These days it often costs just as much or more to repair something than it does to replace it. Even high end brands don't last more than a couple of years.
#4
Search engines: sure, they were wonky and unreliable in the wild west internet era (e.g. HotBot, Lycos, Webcrawler), but Google came along and revolutionized everything. Peak search engine reliability was probably in the mid-2010s, and it's been in a steep decline since then. Nowadays when I search for anything on Google, it omits random key words of mine, gives me irrelevant AI-generated answers, shows me Pinterest images, and pulls up irrelevant PDF files from things I distinctly did not search for.
YouTube search is complete garbage too. After searching for a video, it'll show me three results followed by "people also watched" and "finish watching", then a bunch of irrelevant Shorts and Jimmy Kimmel videos for whatever the f**k reason.
Rocket Surgeon 4 months ago
To this day I don't have an issue with searching on Google for things. It's still the most reliable way to find information. Sure you have to look at the answers critically but when don't you?
#5
Pyrex. The old stuff was borosilicate glass, highly resistant to heat stress and therefore great in the kitchen. The new stuff is tempered soda lime glass, which is stronger if you drop it, but can just shatter unexpectedly under certain heat-related circumstances, such as putting a cold Pyrex dish in the oven or a hot one under tap water, which were things you could usually do with old Pyrex with no problems.
Justin Tyme 4 months ago
Pyrex was started by Corning Inc (formerly known as Corning Glass Works). The glass in Pyrex products was changed after Corning sold the brand in 1998.
#6
Jeans. I can feel how thin the denim is and how much faster they’ve rubbed away in the thighs, yet they’ve nearly doubled in price for some designers.
#7
Staplers. We lost our ~20 year old solid metal stapler and all the new replacements were cheap plastic.
I finally went on eBay and bought one identical to the one we lost because I couldn't deal with the plastic one.
If it can't be used as a weapon, it isn't sturdy enough ;)
Tucker Cahooter 4 months ago
The main criterion for an office stapler is whether it is easy to encase in jello or not
#8
HP Printers - The old grey bricks that you saw 20 years ago in every office that connect via the old parallel printer port were amazing workhorses. Anything from the last 15 years is the epitome of cheap garbage.
Daniel Atkins 4 months ago
The laserjet 4250 is a tank. The only issue as a tech that i have found is the memory is too small. Windows has made print jobs much larger causing the memory to fill up and cause the printer to delete the job.
#9
Freaking strawberries they domesticated them to be bigger and stuff but now theyre wayy less sweet. Like they used to be bright red and very sweet. I would do anything for an og strawberry rn
patrick mcdonold 4 months ago
You gotta grow your own...or buy some from someone who grows their own...and do it with organic fertilizers...and let them ripen on the plant...you won't have those giant Frankenstein strawberries you see at the store but the concentration of berry sweetness is to die for and will instantly transport you back to a time when strawberries from the supermarket were delicious because they were only available IN SEASON FROM LOCAL PRODUCERS...we want to have everything available to us all the time now so we get over fertilized fruit (grows big and looks amazing but has little flavor) that has been picked before ripened (hence you noticing the lack of bold color) then shipped from Mexico or California all over the US in huge trucks that pump ethylene (a gaseous hormone that naturally occurs in fruit on a plant that induces the ripening process) into the truck storage area to ripen the fruit during transport so ultimately the fruit will last longer...sad strawberries 😔
#10
When those Magic Eraser foam block scrubbers came out, they were amazing. Just wet one and it scrubbed years of carbon build up from my stove top. I'd get months of heavy use out of each one. Maybe a year or two after they were introduced, the quality nosedived. They tear apart and deteriorate after the first use.
#11
Furniture! Used to be solid and worth having for years.
Liz The Biz 4 months ago
I have lots of nice solid antique furniture in my house. I can't stand modern, flimsy flat pack rubbish.
#12
Ads on Youtube...there's more ads to a video than content 🤦🏻♀️
#13
Lifetime warranties were actually for a Lifetime and durability was actually a selling point on most products.
#14
I have a KitchenAid stand mixer that I was gifted in 1999. The thing is an absolute tank and is still going strong 25 years later! I've used newer ones and they just don't last compared to the old models
Shaunn Munn 4 months ago
My aunt has Grandma's Kitchen Aid with the crank lift, and it' been a treasured member of the family almost 75 years. My flip-up Kitchen Aid is 25.
#15
Hand tools.
I just got a giant tool box full of 70s steel tools made before the mills shut down. They are in perfect shape and will last another 50 years.
William Johnson 4 months ago
Snap-on, still that level of quality. My tools will be passed down and they have a true life time warranty
#16
Tomatoes. When I was a kid in the Seventies they were sweet, flavorful and delicious. You could just cut one open, sprinkle a little salt on it and chomp into it with content.
Tomatoes these days are hard, flavorless garbage.
Daniel Atkins 4 months ago
That is because they are picked green gassed to get it red. They are not ripe.
#17
Music
Lifetime software purchases being converted to subscriptions
#18
Washing machines. You’ve done well if yours lasts more than 5 years now.
Lily_Clancy 4 months ago
we had to replace our washing machine just about a year ago because when my mom would do the laundry, it would go off-balance every time, so she had to stand there the entire time. my mom was so done with it she started crying. thats when we bought a new washing machine, and it is amazing, my mom loves it (its one of the newer ones, dont know the brand. but it absoloutely amazing and plays a little tune when the load has finished :D)
#19
Literally everything on Amazon is made by one of these Chinese 5 capital letter companies that switch names whenever their reviews get too bad. Nothing they make lasts very long if it even does what they day it does.
#20
TV seasons. You used to get 20-24 episode seasons every single year. Now we get 6-10 episode seasons that feel like long movies, sometimes every few years. It's stupid. I want a show I can binge for a long time and so many shows get cancelled before they get past their first short season
#21
Houses.
You used to build houses for you and your family, and had means to invest in materials that would have lasted the test of time.
Now it’s about building to flip or sell, and the corners that are cut in design and execution are astounding.
Huddo's sister 4 months ago
Even 20 years ago, Australians were finding that houses were being built to last 10 years, as opposed to the 50 they were before that. In part because most of the time it was overseas developers coming in and building places that then they either sold for more or rented out- they could afford to build new ones in 10 years if needed. Now we can't even get reliable building companies here, because they are wither owned by overseas companies or are competing with ones that are so are committing fraud or gong bankrupt. Even if you want to build your own home and build it to last, you can't get anyone to build it to completion or your specs.
#22
Cotton T-shirts. My shirts used to last for years. Now they don't hold up and start getting little holes within six months to a year.
Dorothea Stovall 4 months ago
The yearly white cotton T-shirt buy in September. So tired of special washing them and they still fall apart in a few months. I'm talking Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, etc. very cheaply made.
#23
Bad: car windshield are thinner and break more often
Good: brussel sprouts have been bred to be less bitter
#24
My expensive charging vacuum broke. Granted, it lasted 4 years of daily vacuuming due to a dog with a disability. My mom let me borrow her very old Oreck while I was waiting for my new vacuum and it did a better job than mine ever did, honestly.
Definitely at least going back to plug ins.
#25
Houses. They used to be stone and wood now they’re cardboard
#26
Jeans.
I just want 100% cotton denim pants where the tag tells me the waist and inseam measurements.
No poly blend. No stretch fit. No tags that say 34" waistband, but are actual 38".
#27
It's not just one specific item, but I've been saying over the past few years how I miss seeing hand carved designs.
Looking at older buildings, cathedrals, or even furniture, you can see that carpenters used to spend weeks upon weeks hand carving their masterpieces. Everything had intricate designs based upon the region or century / decade they were in.
Now everything just looks mass produced, flat, symmetrical, and lifeless. Everybody's everything looks like somebody else's something, but back in the day, great-great-great-great grandpa was carving cherubs and filigree into works made out of stone / marble / wood.
Ryan Smith 4 months ago
A few years ago, the church my mom attended had to repair some stonework in its steeple -- they had to bring in some workers from Poland to do the work, because they couldn't find anyone in the U.S. who was qualified.
#28
Fast food. Used to be delicious, good quantities, fairly cheap and.. fast. Now for example I sit in a drive thru for 20 mins at taco bell, my burrito supreme is like $8 now and is the size of that tornado thing you get at 7-11 and tastes like bad grease. This is no way an attack on employees, but more on the higher-ups that make these decisions.
Mark Boelte 4 months ago
When Taco Bell first opened, they made everything in the store. The refried beans were delivered dehydrated, then reconstituted and cooked in the store, taco shells were fried fresh, the meat was cooked on a grill. It makes a big difference in the taste.
#30
My family had the same GE microwave for 16ish years. It finally stopped making things hot. I found out they still make that "exact" microwave and I bought it.
Within a month the buttons are broken. There are features the old unit had that the new one has had programmed out of it. It is already grinding and clicking and groaning. It won't last a year let alone 16.
Puppy Dancing! 4 months ago
My microwave just quit after 20 years. My Sears Convection microwave is 23 this year, still works.
#31
I've been repairing appliances in my old house for years, but the new appliances just are not built to last. I replaced a control board in my refrigerator and a control board in my dishwasher in the past year. The dishwasher worked for another 6 months then the replacement control board failed. I started looking deeper into it and these control boards fail way too often.
I'm an EE, and I'm convinced the boards in particular are 'designed to fail' after after a few years
Igor914624 4 months ago
I fixed the motherboard in my refrigerator by re-soldering the relay contacts for the compressor relay. Heat cycles had broken the cold solder joints. To contrast, I have a refrigerator in my garage that was built in the 1980s, and it has not been touched at all. It just keeps going.
#32
My grandpa gave me some of his tools before he died. Have a power sander from sometime in the early 80s. That thing is amazing. Best sander I've ever had. I had one I got in 2018. Piece of s**t in comparison.
Justin Tyme 4 months ago
I'm still using a handheld circular saw that I bought about 25 years ago.
#33
Plastic “disposable” utensils: the hospital I work for has a cafeteria that only provides plastic utensils, the knives do not cut meat and the bend into a U with hot foods…I am also positive I’ve swallowed a few prong tips from forks that break off in a bite.
#34
Clothing. It’s mostly semi throwaway unless you get higher end stuff.
#35
Oreos. The Double Stuff is now the thickness of the originals from 20 years ago, while the regular only has a thin white smear between the cookies. Pathetic example of shrinkflation
#36
My biggest gripe is blenders. All they need to do is make the seal housing out of metal instead of plastic and they'll last 10+ years instead of 18 months. My mother's blender is over 40 years old and she still uses it daily. Meanwhile, we must have had 10 of them.
matt ahearn 4 months ago
Yeah…..no. They have always made cheap blenders. My mother’s “wedding gift” blender that she had her whole life, but hardly used, was not good. Very low speed, cheap blades, tiny container. There is no comparison between that and a quality modern blender.
#37
Pretty much f*****g everything online. Every physical object sold is garbage now. It used to be most stuff sold in most stores was garbage, but if you did research and bought something specific online you could get something that would last. Now if you do research and buy something specific you still get a hunk of c**p, only now it connects to WiFi for some god forsaken reason.
#38
Kids toys. My parents have toys at their that survived their entire childhood AND mine and are still going strong. I buy something for my kids and it’s broken in weeks. I know my kids are high energy, but so were my siblings and we didn’t destroy things at this rate!
Regina Holt 4 months ago
When I give gifts to small children it us usually Lego, wooden blocks, or books. No moving parts to break off. No electronics to stop working. Plus it requires actual brain power.
#39
Anything accessible to normal working people has become cheaply made and poorly designed I feel. Sure you can still find exceptional quality but I don’t like having to pick between feeding my family and getting something nicer for myself. I have a full time job in a school and I work a second job to pay the bills. I have replaced so many things that are just designed for failure. Coffee makers aren’t that great anymore. My old mr coffee was a workhorse. The new one is ok but already wearing out
I will say timex watches still seem to be the same standard. Yes cheap but also reliable
#40
Panera. It used to be so good, now it's like glorified fast food that's way too expensive.
#41
Craftsman tools. In the 50s-70s, among the best tools available and came with a lifetime guarantee. Now cheap junk, not even as good as Harbor Freight tools.
keyboardtek 4 months ago
They were made in China for a long time. Parts were discontinued to repair the older model tools. Now I see they are being produced in America again. I hope the quality is like it used to be.
#42
Mattresses. Used to be solid, last longer, and more comfy. Flippable too.
Anna Drever 4 months ago
You don’t want to know how old our bed is. Just trust me, it’s ancient. I’m not throwing away a perfectly good bed just because you’re ‘supposed to’ chuck them after several years. It’s not as pretty as it used to be under the sheets but it’s still firm with no sagging.
#43
Doc Martens boots. Still have mine from the 90s, made in the UK. Some I got back in 2010 or so (made in China) are sturdy as f**k but of lesser quality overall.
Jeremy James 4 months ago
I never had the money to buy quality footwear, only the cheap stuff. Then, a few years ago, I had a small windfall and decided I was finally going to get something that would last. I did research and found a company with a solid reputation earned over the last 100 years. The shoes started falling apart after 3 months. I guess even the ones who used to make them like they used to don't make them like they used to.
#44
Shoes. If you're unwilling to spend over $200, you're going to get plastic shoes that if you're lucky will last a year. From sneakers, loafers, to boots, heels. And that woven sneaker material with the plastic molded soles have their analogue in the throw-away slub knit tee shirts: designed to be replaced frequently and destined to create more landfill mountains.
matt ahearn 4 months ago
BS. I always wait until the ASICS outlet has a Bogo on sneakers. I have never spent more than $150 on the buy one shoe, and walked away with two good pair. I like ASICS for their performance, but they also last. I’ve had a few pair that have been worn every day and took a beating. Whereas, my $150 Hoka’s are falling apart from less than everyday wear, in just over a year.
#45
I bought underwear 2 years ago that is still in great shape. I have been losing weight and needed to go down a size. I bought the exact same brand 2 months ago and half of them are coming apart at the seems.
#46
Pyrex. Used to be made of ultra low thermal expansion borosilicate glass, so you could use it like metal for roasting and baking, but it retained its heat like cast iron.
These days it’s made with cheaper lithium silicate glass, which will still resist heat fine, but is prone to shattering from thermal shock if the temperature change is too sudden.
Dorothea Stovall 4 months ago
I had one shatter after removing a toast and putting it in a dry sink. Scared the cr*p out of me and took forever to clean up the thousands of shards.
#47
Levis. The pair I had as a teen lasted years. The most recent ones got holes in several places after a few months.
Khall Khall 4 months ago
Ripped jeans mean you're doing something cool. I wouldn't be surprised if they made them to wear out faster to produce rips in 'cool' places. I mean...people buy pre-ripped jeans. Once that starts...why wouldn't you cater to the market?
#48
Obscure but skateboard bearings
I have some nmb and nsk bearings that I put in my lad’s skateboard. I got them second hand 40 years ago
#49
Heated blankets. My grandma’s from 1993 is still a fire hazard and mine from 2021 Costco isn’t working on one half side now
#50
My Torrid clothes from the 2000s are still going strong but the stuff I got last year has snags and holes in them.
What do you think ?
The Darkest Timeline 4 months ago
This is the world we asked for, people: cheap goods available at your fingertips. You simply cannot have all three of cheap, durable and high-quality at the same time. Capitalism provides abundance, not quality and most companies abandoned customer satisfaction in favor of shareholder value a long time ago. Combine that with the obscene number of people on this planet and you’ve got what we have.
John Ambrose 4 months ago
Next up on Bored Panda, 500 pieces of junk you NEED to buy on Amazon.
John Nelson 4 months ago
I'm a hobby blacksmith and craftsman. Don't even bother to try to sell anything anymore, got fed up with people looking at my heirloom quality work and saying "I can get it cheaper at Walmart" I only make stuff for myself and family now. A lot of folks like me have done the same thing, you get what you pay for, and lose what you don't!
Captain Insano 4 months ago (edited)
Sadness...the total lack of understanding and appreciation for artisans and craftsmen makes me yearn for the pre-digital age (notice I did not say pre-industrial age)
Load More Replies... The Darkest Timeline 4 months ago
This is the world we asked for, people: cheap goods available at your fingertips. You simply cannot have all three of cheap, durable and high-quality at the same time. Capitalism provides abundance, not quality and most companies abandoned customer satisfaction in favor of shareholder value a long time ago. Combine that with the obscene number of people on this planet and you’ve got what we have.
John Ambrose 4 months ago
Next up on Bored Panda, 500 pieces of junk you NEED to buy on Amazon.
John Nelson 4 months ago
I'm a hobby blacksmith and craftsman. Don't even bother to try to sell anything anymore, got fed up with people looking at my heirloom quality work and saying "I can get it cheaper at Walmart" I only make stuff for myself and family now. A lot of folks like me have done the same thing, you get what you pay for, and lose what you don't!
Captain Insano 4 months ago (edited)
Sadness...the total lack of understanding and appreciation for artisans and craftsmen makes me yearn for the pre-digital age (notice I did not say pre-industrial age)
Load More Replies...
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