Capitalism means things get more expensive, and inflation happens, but for some reason, some things have dropped in quality.
In theory, capitalism is meant to breed innovation, however, that isn't always the case in its application. While companies are incentivized to create quality products, often when a brand corners a market the need to innovate becomes secondary to maximizing profits.
Take Apple for example, the world's largest technology company has been criticized for its lack of innovation in recent years, instead focusing on growing its profits through its wearable product lines.
At r/AskReddit they discussed products that got more expensive with inflation, but ultimately suffered in quality, making them less desirable.
1
I spent $42 for three sandwiches at subway recently. u/vbpatel
2
Vegetables. They used to be relatively inexpensive but would last 3 days or more. Now if you buy them, they look bad and have to be cooked/consumed almost immediately.
3
Public Education. Over the last 50 years, the quality of public education has steadily declined, while teacher pay stagnated, and cost per pupil has exploded. We need some serious public school reform. u/Eodbatman
5
Most video games...? LOL Sure they're pretty now but jeez they launch in terrible shape and seem more focused on bleeding us for money than showing us a good experience... u/Uriel_dArc_Angel
6
Twitter/X u/saltysaltysaltsalt
7
Basically anything from Apple. u/GoodGriefWhatsNext
8
Air travel. Shrinkflation as an art form. u/moradoman
9
Tipping. For anything. Girl wanted a 20% tip to hand me a premade pizza at Pizza Hut. u/Limp-Persimmon-5729
10
Almost all grocery store food. u/ITguydoingITthings
11
Cable television. More commercials, channels upon channels of nonsense, ridiculous monthly bill u/Plus-Statistician80
12
Car prices When monthly car payments are what mortgages used to be and people are getting 10 year loans, you know vehicles are way too expensive. u/The-Batt
13
Disney Parks so ******* much. Genie+’s implementation has been awful, and I’m not even in the camp of being upset that fast pass has to be purchased now, that’s how literally every other theme park is, but the system itself is stupid. Any other park, you pay for the fast pass, you enter through that quick line, maybe only once per ride, that’s it, no bull****. Plus they cap the sales. u/pastadaddy_official
14
Rent. The price keeps climbing, the wages are stagnated, and the houses keep getting worse. u/ToreyCMoore
15
Hot pockets. They used to be pretty good, even cooked in a microwave. Now they're made with worse quality bread, barely have half as much meat, don't cook well, and they cost about 50% more. All this in just 5ish years. u/ExaltedDemonic
16
Streaming in general. Netflix the most because they were first. But it used to be you had one maybe two services and could watch almost anything anytime. Now there's like 50 services and nearly everything they have is exclusive and when you want to watch a certain movie or show you have to first Google to find out what service it's on and see if you even have access. u/Kylynara
17
Appliances. Washers, dryers, refrigerators. But hey , if it doesn't break, how can they sell you a new one? I had 30 year old hand me downs when I started out. Gave them away, and to my knowledge, they are still being used. New stuff is 30 times more expensive and fails in 5 years. u/jabsaw2112
18
Fast food. McD's used to be my lazy go-to breakfast. Used to be cheap and awesome. Now breakfast for me and my wife is like $20. Used to get 2 hashbrowns for $1, now they flipped it and they're $2 each. No hashbrown that size and quality is worth 2 ******* dollars. u/vonkeswick
19
American candy bars. They're downright tiny now and cost 2-3 times as much as they did 10+ years ago. Also, you can tell the manufacturers are using inferior ingredients -- the chocolate is dry and chalky. u/rosesforthemonsters
20
Insurances u/Derc_on_Reddit
