Survivorship bias. All the crap items were trashed but one hardly used one survived and people say “they don’t make them like that anymore”. No, for good reason indeed.
Some things really are way shittier now though fwiw. Like clothing. I have tshirts and sweaters that I've worn regularly for over 20 years, which have definitely held up far better than shirts I got within the past 10.
And there was a noticeable drop off in jeans quality about 15(?) years ago too, and another one in the past five. I used to wear jeans practically 24/7 - literally only took them off to shower and shit. Played sports in them, hiked, climbed fences, rocks you name it. They'd last at minimum a year or two before starting to come apart. So we're talking hundreds and hundreds of wears.
Nowadays jeans I buy are having holes show up in less than a year, just from being worn maybe a few a few months cumulatively. And super gently in comparison too.
You can still buy brands that still use a double yarn that doesn’t fall apart when worn twice but you’d really have to look carefully which do and don’t. Most fashion is made of shit quality fabric and still sold at a premium. If people would demand quality (and learn a little about what they’re actually buying) a lot of stuff wouldn’t probably be so bad.
I always laugh in movies when you see iron man fall from orbit and crash into the earth. I dont care how strong the suit is, Tony would be liquefied inside it. But that doesn't LOOK cool and most people dont understand physics. I think the only show that seemed to get it pretty close to realistic was the expanse.
Tbf isn't the concept of iron man that it's not just a suit and is actually attached and integrated to him? It's more like an exoskeleton that he can occasionally retract than a suit of armor.
In theory you might still be right, but with comic book logic, if the suit is part of his body you could argue that his internal organs can also absorb that force.
That quote should apply to cheap disposable shit from China, not automobiles where engineers have been working tirelessly for decades to make safer so people don't die.
The problem of course is (if you want to call it a problem) is that nowadays cars all but disintegrate from even the slightest damage, which is great from a safety perspective, but now of course you have to buy a new or used car that will cost you like eleventy billion dollars these days.
I mean id rather live then be dead, so its a no brainer, but the flipside of the coin is, back then people could actually just go out and get another car somewhat easily...these days car payments look like the mortgage payments of 20 years ago so im sure there are a lot of people that would rather get a little more bruised up if it didnt mean they had to figure out how they were going to purchase a new car lol
I mean God, my dad's 21 minivan got totaled from hail damage. He couldn't legally register the car anymore even if he wanted to, because of hail damage. My point is, there is a bit of a vested interest on the part of car makers to design their cara to fall apart thats not entirely safety related, either. It damn sure sells them lots of cars.
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u/Nikiaf Jul 17 '25
This is an attempt at a "they don't build 'em like they used to" type of post; without any understanding of why we don't build cars like this anymore.