People Are Sharing Examples Of "They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To", Here Are 50 Of The Best

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.

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.

Bad: car windshield are thinner and break more often
Good: brussel sprouts have been bred to be less bitter

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.

Houses. They used to be stone and wood now they’re cardboard

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".

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.

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.

Cadbury's cream eggs.

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.

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

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.

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.

Clothing. It’s mostly semi throwaway unless you get higher end stuff. 

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

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.

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.

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!

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 

Panera. It used to be so good, now it's like glorified fast food that's way too expensive.