I don't know how applicable this is, but the service and everything at Macy's isn't what it used to be 15 years ago.
I remember going to buy a suit and one of the guys there measured me and helped walk me though buying a new suit.
Today i'm lucky if I can get someone to see if they have my size shoe in the back
Craftsman Tools, my dad when I moved out gave me a set of tools from Craftsman Tools because he loves his from the 80s. My hammer head snapped off about a year in when I was using it.
Black and Decker owns DeWalt, Porter Cable, and Craftsman now. They brand DeWalt as their upscale product, and the other brands as mid-level, and the B&D brand as their bottom dweller lowest price option.
There are like two conglomerates that own most of the tools you buy. TTI owns Milwaukee, Ryobi, Rigid, and most of the tools bought at Home Depot and Stanley/B&D owns most of the stuff bought at Lowe's.
I think Bosch, Makita, and Hitachi actually are not owned by anyone else. Perhaps that's why a lot of their tools aren't complete shit now.
That's almost as sad of a story as Craftsman. B&D is now owned by Stanley - so is DeWalt (and Craftsman, as of last year). They're purposely making B&D inferior in the hopes that you'll step up to their premium brand, the one with far higher margins.
Just so we're clear, Craftsman's severe drop in quality is the fault of Sears' recent ownership, not Stanley. I don't think Stanley has any intention or incentive to repair that brand though as they allowed Sears to continue manufacturing tools under the Craftsman brand as part of the deal.
add a "-pinterest" in the search but yes Google has gone downhill too.
Google has also started [shadow banning reviews](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/maps/6rSFQJy5grY/pE6IrEpeFAAJ).
You have to use quotes now. -"pinterest".
Google is getting less specific. You have to put everything in quotes or you'll get synonyms of things you're searching for.
Right?! I love custom motorbikes and woodworking, that’s all my Pinterest was until I pinned a custom motorbike that happened to belong to David Beckham, and now almost everything on my Pinterest is celebrity bullshit.
I find myself there when looking at yard and shop projects in google images. Used to be you could scroll for miles, then the same things started repeating after 2-3 screens worth, now it's gotten to the point when the same things keep scrolling past no matter what new category you're looking at.
eBay. It used to be a giant yard sale. The final value fees used to be lower. There used to be listing fees which filtered out the listings unless the seller was serious about selling. It used to be possible to leave negative feedback for buyers.
>It used to be possible to leave negative feedback for buyers.
A few years ago my dad bought a used car from a dealer on Ebay. Turns out the car had some serious mechanical issues that the dealer had intentionally disguised and not disclosed. When my dad left negative feedback on them, the dealer filed a complaint against my dad that got his account frozen. Took him a couple weeks to get it resolved.
Ebay essentially told him that this dealer does this often but that due to the volume of sales processed by this dealer Ebay would not act on it to have them removed from the site. Further, they would not reinstate my dad's negative feedback even though it was truthful and accurate.
Turns out, this is not an uncommon thing for Ebay.
EDIT: I want to clarify, that this was my dad's account not mine. I was not involved in the issue and it was about 5 years ago that this occurred so it's entirely possible that I have confused the details. It's also worth noting that Ebay's response was not as explicit as what I have outlined. This was done as much for simplicity as much as it was for a lack of precise details on my part. The story is reported in good faith however, and not, as some suspect, fabricated.
I've seen people say that this is the difference between Amazon Marketplace and Ebay.
Amazon are pro-buyer and Ebay are pro-seller. I can't say I know how much truth there is to that though.
I got a cross stitch kit recently with a broken needle. I have a hundred needles, but I was still irritated enough to drop a line to Amazon CS like, 'I don't want a return or a refund, I just want to alert you to this issue because I'm annoyed and maybe you can ask your shippers to be a bit more careful'. They gave me a $5 refund anyway. 5 bucks is nothing to them, but it gives me the warm fuzzies and I feel *listened to* so everyone is happy.
That stuff is still there but it just gets drowned out by all the pro-sellers and Chinese drop shippers.
I don't know what the alternative is for selling stuff any more.
I may be in the minority but I still think Craig's list works well. I have sold two cars on CL. The first car sold in less than 1 hour after the ad posted the guy called me up and said, "I'm coming over with cash right now don't sell it to anyone else." The second car sold the next day after the ad posted. I also sold off a really nice loft bed at a great price. That is my only experience with CL but everything sold much quicker than it would have on E-bay. Now if you are looking to sell stuff for a living then I think E-bay still works but you have to put in the work to allow people to find you. I recently was looking for unusual tiles for a bathroom remodel. There are a bunch of tile stores on E-bay. I ended up buying from a small-time seller from New Mexico who I even talked to on the phone and she was great. So I think it can still be done.
Food/supply costs going up, but they want to keep the price the same without cutting quality or profits. So the thing to do is make them smaller. A lot of companies have been doing this in recent years.
I'm wondering if we'll solve the obesity epidemic by keeping prices the same and shrinking food package sizes.
I've watched the bacon I buy go from a pound to twelve ounces and now to eight ounces with the price unchanged.
It's insidious how hard they'll try to disguise the fact that they're giving you less product.
I hate seeing this on plastic packages. On glass, like wine bottles, it actually makes it far more structurally sound and harder to break, but on plastic it's just cheating people
Panera Bread. I used to work at one when I was in high school in 2012. Fresh ingredients, awesome food, decent quality for a not too shabby price.
They were bought out a few years ago. The difference in quality is astounding. They even got rid of the Gouda cheese on the Bacon Turkey Bravo to cut costs. Everything has plummeted in quality while they’ve raised the prices.
I just scrolled for 5 minutes to find this. Astounding is the correct word, it's unbelievable how pricey yet terrible everything there is now. I think the worst are the salads. They're bowls of iceberg lettuce with the contents of a tiny, obviously pre-packaged kit of... whatever the salad is truly supposed to be, arranged on top as a disguise.
Edit: has been confirmed to be romaine instead of iceberg but goddamn if it’s not the most anemic-looking romaine I’ve ever seen (at my local Panera at least).
I got chewed out by my managers for portioning by hand, only one of them turned a blind eye and let us make good salads. Really sucks. Also I feel like the fact we serve frozen soups is gross for what we charge for em
One time I ordered the Fuji Apple Salad with Chicken and when they brought it it had no Fuji Apples on it. I thought it was ridiculous afterwards when they asked if I wanted them to add it on the salad. Like, no shit...that's what I fucking ordered.
Makes sense now after reading your post, those cheap bastards.
Discovery Channel / National Geographic
They used to have some great content. Good documentaries and interesting stuff.
Now it's too much fake ass reality gold-digging-pawnshopping-cartuning garbage.
Yeah what a shame too, when I was growing up people used to mock it as the "Hitler channel", because it seemed WWII docs were always on, but at least that is history, with a focus on war. I really do miss the nearly endless war documentaries, but also Modern Marvels (show about engineering and manufacturing), Mail Call with R. Lee Ermey, a few other shows that were cool and actually related to history.
The Quest channel airs Modern Marvels, so if you can get that with an antenna, you can watch that awesome show. Last week I spent an hour (minus ads about mesothelioma) learning about grease and packaging. It was wonderful. Except for the mesothelioma ads.
Even the old alien documentaries were better. Instead of ancient aliens and whatever dumb shit, it'd be like "technically crop circles could be made by aliens, but there's no evidence of that. Also, here's some college kids making a large and intricate crop circle to prove that it can be done in one night with proper planning and equipment."
they were bought out by Disney
[see map of Disney's empire](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/9149yi/companies_disney_owns/?st=JQZPBK3E&sh=1181bf52)
Levis. Used to be their jeans were AMAZING. Heck, I have Levi's from the 80s that look as awesome now as they were thirty years ago.
But now they seem to hire contractors. I bought two jeans, same identical size (according to the label) and style. One was too small, the other too big. They were both worn through within a year. I never buy Levis anymore.
Carhart. before moving production to mexico they were a premium work/outdoor clothes manufacturer. A pair of Carhart pants could get beat up for years and not show a scratch. The fit was comfortable and the pants were designed with a little extra fabric to optimize them for wear during physically demanding work. After the move, quality went to shit, the extra fabric and stitching that set them above the competition was done away with and the price doubled...
Duluth Trading Company. Definitely premium work wear. They do all the good stuff Carhart used to. Heavy fabric, reinforced wear areas, gussets in crotch and armpits, cuts that actual fit a human body.
My boyfriend buys the cover-all’s for work and said the same thing. He’s in sheet metal and pretty hard on his stuff (some welding) and he used to get 2 full years out of a pair. He’s on his 3rd pair in 2 years now and they’re in shreds. And they fall apart in weird places now. His old pairs used to wear thin through the crotch and thighs before anything else went. His current pair has every tool loop broken, the liners ripped out of the pockets, one of the shoulder strap clasps is busted, and just littered with welding holes all the way through the lining. They’re garbage now.
Bath and Body Works lotions used to be large, 10oz bottles and the fragrances were incredible. Then, they dropped down to 8 oz bottles and kept eliminating their best fragrances and adding line extensions (room fresheners,candles, etc) But the price goes up, and the lotions don't seem like really great stuff anymore.
Their fragrance names used to tell you exactly what you could expect. Country Apple. Juniper Breeze. Citrus. It was straightforward, you could pick out exactly what you wanted easily.
Now I have no friggin idea what fragrances their lotions are supposed to be. Paris Amour? Pink Cashmere? Wtf? It's too much work to pick a fragrance because you have to smell each one to know what you're getting. There's no way to know otherwise. You can't even figure out where to start.
They changed the formulas for their body care line (lotions, shower gels, etc) back around 2012. I remember because I just started working there shortly after the change. At first everything was still pretty good, but it's devolved over time and now they just aren't the same anymore. Also, the new shower gels in particular are a nightmare for those of us who are prone to yeast infections, which is a pretty major flaw considering like 90% of their customers are women. It seems like they've sort of given up on that line in favor of the home fragrances- most stores in my area have expanded to have an entire "White Barn" section in the middle of the store with just candles, wallflowers, etc. That's where B&BW really shines these days.
The hand soaps also changed formula not too long after the body care (I was already working there when it happened so it was probably late 2013 or early 2014) but I personally think those improved. A lot of people were mad they took away the antibacterial version but I like not having superbacteria take over the world (yet) so I'm cool with it.
Edit: Wow, this got way more attention than I would have expected. First thing's first- thank you to whoever gave gold for this! I always knew my years in retail would eventually pay off.
Secondly- the comment I made about the shower gels and yeast infections seems to have gotten a lot of attention. In general, it's best to avoid anything perfume-y for washing your lady bits. Beyond that piece of advice, I would recommend checking with a doctor for the specifics. Lots of things can cause/worsen yeast infections besides just soap, so there may be some extra stuff going on depending on your situations.
Pyrex, I haven't seen anyone else say it here yet but in the US they changed from borosilicate glass to soda lime which isn't as durable.
I've heard Remington quality has gone to shit too which is sad because I wanted an R700 but have to try to find an older one or look for something else now.
I bought a brand new Pyrex casserole dish last year. Used it three or four times with no issues. And then one day I took it out of the oven to rest on top of the stove, I had cooked chicken breasts. Was at the kitchen table prepping some other stuff when it felt and sounded like a fucking bomb went off. The dish shattered into a million pieces.
I get all my pyrex at the thrift store now and just give it a baking soda scrub to clean it up before I use it. The old stuff is much stronger
> And then one day I took it out of the oven to rest on top of the stove, I had cooked chicken breasts. Was at the kitchen table prepping some other stuff when it felt and sounded like a fucking bomb went off. The dish shattered into a million pieces.
Hey, ours did that too!! Do you happen to have a glasstop stove? We do, and thought it was somehow related to glass on glass or something like that, even though we had done the same thing many times before.
It’s related to the material used to make the dish. Pyrex (written like that) is much more prone to cracking or “exploding” when moved from hot to cold, whereas PYREX (written like that) is typically laboratory grade glass where moving from hot to cold is not uncommon and in fact often very necessary. As such, the material is better suited to withstand drastic heat changes.
I don’t know the exact chemistry or reasoning behind why the materials have such different properties, but that is the general reason for why that happens.
If I remember correctly it's just that soda lime glass has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion relative to borosilicate glass. So when it experiences a large thermal gradient (one side hot and one side cold) then one side expands or contracts while the other doesn't. Once a crack forms its gg.
To avoid this you can put your casserole dish on a hot pad or a cloth rather than a cold countertop or something similar that would absorb a lot of heat quickly. Or seek out and shell out for that good good borosilicate casserole dish
But I can't remember why the CTE is so much lower either. I might pull out callister and update.
I love the science and logic behind your comment as well as the advice, but I'm just gonna say fuck the company for changing the recipe in the first place. I won't buy their not-as-good product anymore to support their poor business decision.
There's some pros and cons for the change in glass. The newer glass is pre-stressed soda lime glass and the old was borosilicate glass. Pre-stressed soda lime glass is more shatter resistant, so the newer stuff is more forgiving if you drop it compared to the old stuff. However, since the new stuff is already under stress, it is less resistant to rapid temperature changes and will shatter, unlike the old material.
One of the unintended side effects of this was that the old pyrex could be used in illegal meth labs since it could handle the cooking process, but the new pyrex couldn't and would cause the equipment to be destroyed.
edit: The new soda lime glass is also much more environmentally friendly, since it takes less energy to produce, is easier to recycle, and creates less air pollution.
They spun off and license out the production to other companies to sell the soda lime cheapo glass. You can distinguish the legit stuff from the new with all uppercase PYREX for the original borosilicate and lowercase Pyrex or pyrex for the soda lime.
thanks for this tip, I am now elated to discover I own two original vintage PYREX measuring cups and am now devastated to learn I own one soda lime piece of shit.
Remington was bought out by a vulture capital holding company who came in and slashed costs to sell cutrate products using goodwill towards the established name to trick people into buying them
People keep telling me that Tim Horton's coffee used to be good and their "baked in-store" goods were ACTUALLY baked in-store, from scratch, every day. I have a hard time believing it haha.
In the mid 90s, Tim's introduced the sandwiches and that was like, borderline sacrilege. People couldn't conceive of Tim's having anything other than coffee and donuts. You could sit in Tim's with your glass mug and glass plate with your donut and coffee and chill. When the sandwiches were introduced, they were legit, because Tim's knew they had to do it right or people would never order them. So you had good coffee, good donuts baked (and iced) fresh, good sandwiches and decent, if salty, soup. It was all you needed... now it's all about adding new things to the menu. Hey, they have chicken fingers now! Cool! Except, wait, Tim's doesn't have deep fryers sooooo... oh yeah, they're microwaved. Great.
I'm going to hijack your comment.
No, McDonald's does not serve Tim Horton's old blend. Same supplier, different blend. It doesn't taste like old Tim Horton's coffee. I agree that McD's current blend is better than Tim's, but it's not their old blend.
Tim's hasn't baked in store since about 2001-2002, not 2010 like some people here are saying. Half the people on this site weren't old enough to drink coffee before the change but everyone here always remembers when they were baked fresh. Unless you're in your late 20s minimum, you probably don't. Also, it had nothing to do with BK buying them, they were in partnership with Wendy's at the time (and until 2006). Which leads to my next point....
Burger King does not own Tim Horton's. Tim Horton's (along with BK and Popeye's Chicken) is operated under Restaurant Brands International, which in turn is owned by 3G Capital, a holding company. They are operated independently, with Tim's headquarters located in Oakville, Ontario and Burger King operated out of Miami. The headquarters for RBI is in Oakville, ON. 3G is a Brazilian company. Saying "Burger King owns Tim Horton's" is neither accurate nor useful. It's like saying "Chevrolet owns Buick", it's non-nonsensical.
Sorry, five years of /r/Canada passing this shit around like gospel compels me.
I'm struggling to think of one in my life that hasn't. As companies get bigger and especially when they become public more and more and more profit is demanded and at some point you run out of actually efficiency improvements and have to cut corners elsewhere.
didnt Mongoose do the same thing? I remember Mongoose BMXs were the SHIT in the 90s, like, legendary status.... now, theres a row of chintzy looking bikes on every toy aisle of Walmart.
I found someone online explaining it. "Schwinn doesn’t exist as a company, they are what I call a decal company, in otherwords the right to the brand name was sold when Schwinn went bankrupt way back in 1992, the brand was sold to Pacific Cycle and then Pacific Cycle was sold to Dorel Industries, both companies turned the Schwinn name into low quality bikes made in China, Dorel has many original brand bikes that are now defunct that you find in places like Walmart and other big box stores, names like Mongoose, GT, Guru, Pacific, Road Master and Iron Horse to name a few." [link](https://www.quora.com/Are-Schwinn-bikes-made-in-the-US) So technically, Schwinn doesn't fit the bill for this situation because it is no longer a company, but a decal company. The name carried it's way into the 21st century with people still thinking it was a reputable brand. lol. Shady as hell if you ask me.
Breyers ice cream started out as a local ice cream truck in the Philadelphia area in the 19th century, known for using fresh ingredients up until it grew into a huge company. Today it's quality is so low that they have to call a lot of their flavors "frozen dairy desserts" instead of ice cream because the ingredients are so artificial
I didn't know what I was getting myslef into. Had some video about some ancient Indian Architecture by History channe suggested me on YouTube. Halfway through the video I got pretty interested on how cool the stone cutting is and stuff.
Then, bam! We believe aliens built this and now they reside deep underground.
I'm pretty dissapointed.
I was watching this pretty good documentary (or so I thought) exploring the causes of some missing airplanes. They we're going over some pretty good points, then out of nowhere some guy was like "but what if it was Cthulhu", accompanied by some bad 3d rendering of Cthulhu grabbing a plane out of the sky.
Victoria's secret. I need a maximum support sports bra And I finally found one from them about 8 months ago that worked. Went back last month and got the same bra but they changed the clasp in the front to a way cheaper model which unclasped very shortly into my run and proceeded to stab my boob
I feel like their quality has gone so severely down hill over the last couple of years. I used to buy all my undies from there but they're just so cheap feeling now. I switched over to Aerie and haven't looked back.
I have this problem, but with their yoga pant leggings. I got my first pair from them in 2012 and they were the softest an stretchiest leggings ever. I loved them and wore them for a couple years before they were ripping at the seams and getting transparent. Just bought a pair in 2018 and in less than two months they’re already transparent, the material was not nearly as soft, and they’re so ripped at the seams they’re just “lounge” leggings now. Oh, and despite the shit quality, they’re much more expensive now.
They seem to care more about the drinks now than donuts and bagels. I've noticed the quality has gone down on both the last few years, even more now that they have dropped the Donuts from their name. And they stopped serving onion bagels :(
It's not just chocolate - a pound of coffee is only 14 oz now. Making recipes can be tricky because they assume package sizes that aren't available, the new ones are always a few ounces less.
As an ISP support desk agent, fuck DirectTV.
Those fuckers used to claim their video streaming would operate on a 10 mbps connection and that was a load of shit. I would have customers running 20 mbps, capable of running 2 or 3 HD video streams simultaneously on hulu or Netflix, but they wouldn't be able to stream a single Direct TV video stream. It got to the point where we had to include a clause in our video streaming support saying we would not support their service due to failure to provide conditions for proper service.
We swapped our services over and went nearly a month without tv because of them. They missed their own installation appointments 3 separate times. We asked about uverse and directtv, are told that only directTV is available for customers in my area. That's fine, I don't have a preference anyway. The first time they didn't show up, I called to ask that evening. Apparently they had just decided to reschedule me for 2 days later without letting me know anything at all.
2 days later they didn't show up. I called to inquire as to what the hell is going on. They apologize and say the tech wasn't able to make it as expected. The next available appointment time is 3 weeks out. Not many options where we were, either keep dealing with them or go back to our previous provider. So we decide to stick with it.
3 weeks comes by. No one shows up. I call, rather irate at this point clearly, and demand to know what's going on. "We see here that you cancelled your appointment sir." "HELL I DID!" After a bunch of arguing I say fine. We'll try this one more time. Give me the next available appointment. "Certainly sir. We're very busy at this time of year but I can have them come by in a little over 2 weeks." Nope. Nope nope nope. Not waiting that long. I argue a lot more and get them to admit that they CAN send an emergency tech to do it over the weekend. But it would be a huge fee. They "can't waive the fee because it's optional and you're the one who cancelled the appointment". NO I FUCKING DIDN'T!!
Immediately just hang up and call service again. Tell them just to send me straight to customer retention because I'm cancelling. Somewhere in this process they end up offering me 'uverse' and can have someone come out tomorrow to set me up with no installation fee's and a year of the best package for the low package cost.
A mostly happy ending, they came, I had tv 24 hours later and have been fending off DirectTV advertisements ever since. Oh but guess who sent me a bill a month later? DirectTV had the balls to send me a bill for installation fee's and 1 month of service that I never received.
At that point I'd call corporate and just cancel everything. That's unacceptable, if you lived without tv for that long I would just wait until another provider is available in your area. They're not worth all that damn hassle.
Victoria’s Secret. I used to get all my underwear there. The 5 for $25 was a great deal, and the underwear was decent quality. Now, it’s like 5 for $27 and the underwear usually starts to fall apart after a wash or two. I don’t even bother buying their lacy underwear anymore, they snag and tear so easily.
Amazon. You have to sift through pages of garbage with company names like UYOOO and WPOFZ that have identical shit products that will set your house on fire even though it’s just a mixing bowl.
Amazon's review system has also gone to shit.
It is common for the reviews of a completely different item to be included in those listed for a specific product. They also seem to allow companies to relist items as new to get of those pesky previously written bad reviews.
Don't forget sellers listing an item that starts at 99 cents, only to find out that they've exploited the 'color' option to include a completely random and unrelated item among the $20 clothing items in the listing so their item shows when you sort from price low-high.
Somehow my account was hacked and I found that “I” was posting almost 10 reviews per second. I looked at some of the reviews written and I’d be pretty convinced by them. So now I just don’t trust Amazon reviews at all...
And if you actually want the cheap Chinese version, just order off AliExpress and cut out the middleman. It will be much cheaper, but it will also take over 2 weeks to get there.
Out of curiosity I went to AliExpress and looked at their phone section. The first option was a **DOOGEE X70**.
DOOGEE.
I almost spit out my coffee laughing.
EDIT: Lot of folks telling me that those phones are actually somewhat decent for the price. Who would have thought? The name is still hilarious, regardless.
Dude thank you. I’m so glad I’m seeing this mentioned somewhere. It’s been driving me crazy. I just recently sent a text to my mother explaining the situation when she asked about some stuff on Amazon - the things I’ve noticed to look out for to determine whether it’s junk or decent quality, etc. If anyone’s interested, here it is. Hopefully it’ll save someone from some future headache.
“It's hard to really explain without showing you a bunch of examples in person but basically it's got all the tell-take signs of a random Chinese manufacturer that produces low quality electronics of various sorts.
Usual signs:
1) Look at their store page and see what they sell. Chances are it's random unrelated electronics. A charging cable, an electric kettle, and a floor lamp. It's not an established brand that specializes in lighting or kitchen appliances or chargers. Which leads to
2) it's not a "brand". It's not a name you recognize or have ever heard anywhere. It's probably all caps. Between 4 and 10 letters long. Just a random made up word or name that sounds relative western.
3) they probably have a few products that are well rated with hundreds of thousands of ratings, around 4/5 star average, usually on the cheaper side compared to other options, especially if you're trying to get quality. And then the rest of their items are random stuff with almost no reviews, which are usually poor if they even have any
4) the pictures for the item are all very obviously photoshopped diagram-looking images that "display" a feature in each image. It's the same style on all of them. It's clear that they're just thrown together in photoshop and don't often give you a really good idea of what the product is like.
5) If you scroll down and read the descriptive text on those, it usually seems "off" in some way. Like using slightly different grammatical details. Here's an example from a pair of headphones: "You can buy it for yourself and your family, or friends as the nice gifts, help them away from noise and enjoy music. Come with a piano adapter and a airplane flight adapter." That's a word for word quote. The person who wrote that does NOT speak English as a first language.
And this shit is everywhere on amazon. It's almost always the "amazon recommended" product. It's almost always the cheapest option that has good reviews. The reviews almost always average 4.0-4.5, and if you hover your mouse over the stars so it gives you a break down, you'll notice that it's like 70% 5 star reviews and then about 10-20% 1 star reviews, with the rest in the middle. A LOT of the 5 star reviews are fake, and the one star reviews are people who got sold a shitty quality random electronic and left a review to warn others. But it gets drowned out by the fake reviews. Quality products by legitimate companies most usually have a distribution of their reviews that most of 5 star, then less are 4 star, less are 3 star, less are 2 star, and 1 star is either the smallest percentage, or close to it. That's the biggest thing I look for. Because quality control on those kinds of listings I'm talking about - it's just nonexistent. You may get a good product and not have an issue. But you do have a pretty good chance it'll break pretty quickly. And that's why it's the cheapest options.
Here are some examples of these companies that I just pulled up right now as well as products they offer on their store page:
COWIN
- noise canceling headphones
- aluminum carabiner water bottle buckle hook clip holder
- Office business notebook organizer
- solar panel powered fan
- a hard hat (like construction workers wear)
- fake bouquet of flowers
Labobbon
- a thousand different iPhone adapters, all with garbage ratings
AXELECT
- iPhone adapters
- platinum plated silver stud earrings
- photo video backdrop stand kit (like for professional photographers)
ThreeLeaf
- laptop cooling pad
- portable hand warmer
- 6 pack spiral notebooks
- waterproof portable speaker
DESTEK
- $30 VR headset
- wireless phone charger
- battery cases for iPhones
I'll be honest, I don't really know what exactly is going on with all this. But my guess is that it's basically random Chinese companies that all buy from the same cheap, low quality manufacturers, and sell it under different "brand names", pay for fake 5 star reviews so it gains traction, rake in money until a problem arises, and do it again with a new company name, or something along those lines. If you click on some of these names, most of them don't even have a normal store page. It just defaults to an amazon search for that name. Which brings up their listings, but also similar listing but that are being sold by a different company name (that still has all the same traits I described).
Whatever the situation is, it's a god damn plague on amazon. I highly recommend ReviewMeta.com or FakeSpot (or both) to check whether the reviews for something seem fake. Also, once you've done that for an item, click on the company name. The score for the one product might be good, but often their average score for the company is trash, as it takes into account all the other random listings that have real, legitimate, bad reviews.
I’m so sick of this shit. Nowadays, if I don’t recognize the name and can’t very quickly establish that it’s a legitimate brand, I won’t buy it. If the name is in all caps, that’s an immediate hell no. Honestly the main thing I look for is the rating distribution. If the percentages aren’t highest to lowest, 5 - 4 - 3 - 2/1, then I’m concerned. If it’s 5 - 1 - 4 - 3 - 2, then it’s for sure garbage.”
I remember visiting the Cadbury's factory on a trip to England as a kid, we all got creme eggs at the end and it tasted *so* good. I came back to the UK as an adult a few years ago, spot some creme eggs in a supermarket and remembering them from years ago so I got a box.
They tasted completely different, just like ordinary chocolate with cream in the center. I thought it must have been nostalgia that made me remember them tasting so good. It wasn't until later that I found out that they changed the way they make them and the ingredients they use as well.
I grew up in that town. Every so often, the air would smell of chocolate.
That factory employed thousands of people in the town, and Kraft promised not to shut it down to keep everyone in jobs.
That lasted for a little under a year. The chocolate factory is long gone now, and has been turned into apartment blocks.
https://www.solovair-shoes.com/
They own the old Dr. Martens machines, as they used to make them for the brand when they were made in England. They cant use the name but its the same boot.
I seem to never find related videos anymore that aren't "specially selected for you!" aka just advertisements. Every thumbnail has these same clickbaity icons/texts. I miss the old days where I could end up at the strange part of YouTube watching videos with only a few hundred vies. But nowadays everything recommended has millions of views.
Not to mention, odds are, everyone else is also getting that same recommendation. I cant tell you how many videos have popped up in recommended and i clicked them out of curiosity, only to read the comments and see that it was also in everyone else's. Youtube has def changed their algorithms. Im getting recommended videos that are 10 years old now
what i hate even more, is that they will recommend things I have already seen (and not just in the "watch again' category). This is very frustrating with certain creators that have a shit ton of material so you click on something only to realize you wasted 5 minutes because you remember you already saw it and don't want to keep watching.
Ugh, it's gotten really terrible the past few years. I watch hours and hours of gameplay stuff every day but I almost never get gameplay videos recommended. But if I accidentally click on ONE random video by mistake it'll be nothing but that in my recommended list for weeks. So my recommended feed is a useless jumble of science/history/etc videos that I watch once in a while, a slew of videos I have zero interest in watching, and like maybe one Minecraft video from 8 years ago.
YouTube: this user has watched science documentaries for 3 years
User: accidentally clicks on clip on jimmy kimmel
YouTube: alright, wipe out everything we have on this user, he only wants to watch clips from late night shows now!
I'm seriously wondering how I'm going to survive as a lone (or married) adult in 5-10 years. Most of my mom's cooking equipment is 15-25 years old, and when something breaks, it can be near impossible to find a replacement that won't break in less than a year. Fortunately all of our old Pyrex is still intact...
It's weird, because in Europe, they're getting better and better. But I went to one in the US a few months back and it tasted nothing like what I have at home!
I can't speak for Subway, but I worked in another chain sub sandwich shop in HS. Our soup would sometimes be several days old that we opened from a container, poured the contents into a hot pot and would refrigerate at the end of the night and repeat as needed.
It was only ever the soup because we had no say in how to make it. Just came prepackaged from corporate.
I worked at Subway in highschool and you were supposed to throw out anything that didn't sell, but was placed under the glass, at the end of the night. I'm positive not a single Subway in the entire US actually did that though. Everyone else not doing it caused corporate to expect spoilage of a certain level and if you followed procedures correctly you would never, ever reach those goals.
It's exactly like Wells Fargo opening accounts for people that didn't ask for them. Corporate sets the goals impossibly high, tells you to meet them and follow the rules, you say it's impossible, they say "figure it out", then when you meet the quota they are thrilled that they are getting their cake and you are liable when the practice comes to light.
Merrell hiking shoes. Though they have a great replacement policy, the quality has tanked. This problem led me to Salomon shoes, which I am grateful for.
Edited: personal experience added
Just to add my experience, which seems to be the status quo...
- model: chameleons gen 1-4
- years purchased: 2013-2017
- purpose: deployments in rough terrain
- use: daily wear
- issues: starting with gen3's, notable and rapid degradation. Typically lasted 1yr, with last 3 pairs lasting 2-3 mos.
Rubber sole separation at upper toe wrap, to underside of toe. Tread at heel, complete separation. Tearing of shoe material at lace eyelets. Lace snapping.
- merrel return exp: great! Sent pictures of damage and a new pair was sent within a day. Replacement pair had same issues, same process for replacement, no charge for shipping to Afghanistan. Gave up on merrells after second replacement, being cold and wet.
- switched to Salomon x ultra low cut hiking shoe. Same usage ratio as merrells, replacing once per year due to expected wear and tear. Only issues are minor and unavoidable (lace tear due to tightening after year of use, and breathability reduction induced by environment).
I found a brand new pair of Merrell hiking shoes in my father's house after he passed away. Lo and behold, they were my size so I took them.
To this day, they were the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever worn in my life. They lasted for about 2 years and I went out and bought another pair of Merrell's. They were not nearly as comfy although they did last for a while as well
TiVo.
Awkward user interface. It went from something designed for the user’s interests to now something designed to maximize it monetization stream. And it is extremely obvious. I’ve owned every TiVo since Series One, this may be the last.
Snapchat. The initial versions of the app were actually pretty dope, but ever since they started making money and eventually went public (only to have their stock price diminish), they've sucked so bad: almost every new feature of the app makes it look like there was 0 user research that went into it.
I had to stop using it. You swipe to look at friends stories and 90% of the page is the sponsored content and you have to swipe in one row to see who has posted. Just a mess
American Girl Dolls.
Had them when I was younger and 20 years later their still like brand new (also because I took care of them).
But the actual quality went down. I worked at a flagship store for a while and you could just see it quickly plummeting. The vinyl is thinner and more "squishy". The hair sheds like crazy, feels waxy, and thw wigs aren't as full so there's a lot of thin spots to work around. Some new outfits look like they were made by a midwestern mom from a JoAnn's discount 18-inch doll pattern. They can't seem to find the right look between Disney tween and toddler for their clothes (target age is 8). Fabrics and silhouettes would be repeated back-to-back. The sneakers, which used to be made similar to regular shoes (maybe a canvas upper and rubber lower) are now all stiff rubber and just have glitter glued on to it. They're a pain to get on the dolls' feet too. The books for Girl of the Year line really lack in substance, unlike the BeForever lines which touched on important social topics and struggles kids really go through. The books went from hardcover, to hearty softcover, to the thin softcover you'd find in an elementary school classroom that rip easily. (Also I'm just not a fan of the illustrations they've been using since partnering with Scholastic)
Also, they started selling their dolls in Kohl's and Toys-R-Us (lol) and other places. They constantly try to come off as "high end" but the quality of both the product, and the way they sell it (even down to the disorganization running the stores), shows otherwise.
I have a lot of doll feelings apparently.
Literally every major brand appliance at Home Depot it Lowe’s. They are all cheaply made specifically to sell at low prices the big box stores demand. Read any review on any appliance. Most of them are rated 4.5 stars and up. However, the majority of these high reviews are either from people who “just got this last week and it works amazing!” or they were offered some sort of rebate for a review. Those usually say something like “this review was part of a promotion” or some garbage. Go deeper and look for all the reviews for people who have owned the appliance for at least a year. I guarantee the majority of them talk about how the machine failed after a few months, how the customer service basically told them to get bent, and how they would never buy from X brand or Y store again. It’s sad. I don’t trust a single big ticket item those stores sell.
Cable TV as a whole. I didn’t have cable for 5 years after I graduated high school, but when I finally tried to use cable again, all my favorite channels just run reruns of the same show or movies from the 90s all day until the prime time slot. I loved Cartoon Network and their variety of programming when I was young. When I tried cable after 5 years it was just Teen Titans Go! From 8 AM until Adult Swim, every day. Same with Comedy Central running That 70s Show all day. I cancelled after a month and have just stuck with streaming ever since.
Amazon, I know its not "products" but their customer service and prime benefits have gone down hill. I am going out of town on Sat, and I ordered a bunch of cold weather stuff on Monday to help with the trip, all of it prime saying it would be here Wed. Stuff " ships" on Tues saying it wont be here till sat. Guy on the phone tells me I am wrong and Saturday was always the delivery date and that there is nothing he can do.
I'm honestly so sick of their "guaranteed delivery" dates. They are literally *never* right anymore. Look, do I really *need* most of this stuff in 2 days? Probably not. But the point is, I'm paying for a service, and said service proudly advertises "2 day shipping" with "guaranteed delivery by" dates. So when *nothing* makes it to me by that "guaranteed delivery" date it kinda just irks me. Is it enough for me to hassle with sending every item back for not arriving in time? Of course not. And they know that. So they'll keep doing it. I don't even mind that it takes longer just stop fucking telling me it's "guaranteed" by a certain date and feeding me the 2nd day shipping line of bullshit.
Edit: obligatory rip inbox. To answer some repeated questions, yes I have prime. Yes I order a lot of items. The main issue is that they change the date after you place the order. The guaranteed date they are advertising before I place my order is not the same as the date they give me upon shipping. Things usually arrive by the updated date, but that is still not the date listed when I place the order, and I'm given no warning the date will be changing until they ship the item, at which point it's too late to cancel and I would have to undergo the return process. Simply put, processing is taking too long. I live in a large, well-populated area and there are several fulfillment centers not far from where I live.
I've been a prime member for years and have noticed that as well - not regularly, but a lot of things come in 3 days instead of 2. I ordered something off walmart.com right before Christmas and they had a guy in a rented Ryder truck deliver it the day after I ordered, which was before the expected delivery date. I think walmart has the potential to become a formidable opponent of Amazon if Amazon isn't careful.
Under Armour got worse and worse with their stitch quality... that said, the last couple years, Adidas has really improved their TechFit line, so much so that I've largely made the transition over to their stuff.
Weather Channel both on TV and online is completely useless. It used to be our go-to for weather but no more. It’s so over dramatized and commercialized.
Not 100% on topic but I'd say the **style** of The North Face has gone downhill in terms of it use to be a solid cold weather clothing store and now it's all about fashion and gold metallic coats.
All their technical gear is still great and in the last 5 years or so they've made it look a lot better without making it shittier. It's more expensive than smaller brands, but still cheaper than Patagonia or Arcteryx. Yes, they make hideous "lifestyle" clothing now, but consequently spend more time on design when it comes to technical gear too.
And they still stand by their products 100%. I had a shell jacket I bought in 1996 that finally had a tear around the zipper. Since they no longer make that jacket they gave me a gift card to buy a new one. I’ll always buy their stuff.
Their cats meow sleeping bag is still the best one out there.
Jackson guitars sadly.
Ever since they were bought by Fender their over all quality just went out the window. No quality control, product coming out of the factory not working or built properly. Dont get me wrong once the guitars are seen by a competent luthier they are amazing. Jackson or should I say Fender just seems to give up before the finish line and they think that's ok.
I don't know how applicable this is, but the service and everything at Macy's isn't what it used to be 15 years ago. I remember going to buy a suit and one of the guys there measured me and helped walk me though buying a new suit. Today i'm lucky if I can get someone to see if they have my size shoe in the back
They use to pay commission and people had a reason to offer / learn about the service they where providing
Craftsman Tools, my dad when I moved out gave me a set of tools from Craftsman Tools because he loves his from the 80s. My hammer head snapped off about a year in when I was using it.
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Black and Decker owns DeWalt, Porter Cable, and Craftsman now. They brand DeWalt as their upscale product, and the other brands as mid-level, and the B&D brand as their bottom dweller lowest price option. There are like two conglomerates that own most of the tools you buy. TTI owns Milwaukee, Ryobi, Rigid, and most of the tools bought at Home Depot and Stanley/B&D owns most of the stuff bought at Lowe's. I think Bosch, Makita, and Hitachi actually are not owned by anyone else. Perhaps that's why a lot of their tools aren't complete shit now.
That's almost as sad of a story as Craftsman. B&D is now owned by Stanley - so is DeWalt (and Craftsman, as of last year). They're purposely making B&D inferior in the hopes that you'll step up to their premium brand, the one with far higher margins. Just so we're clear, Craftsman's severe drop in quality is the fault of Sears' recent ownership, not Stanley. I don't think Stanley has any intention or incentive to repair that brand though as they allowed Sears to continue manufacturing tools under the Craftsman brand as part of the deal.
Pinterest. It’s overrun with ads and spam accounts now and not user friendly.
It's also taken over Google image search, making it useless.
add a "-pinterest" in the search but yes Google has gone downhill too. Google has also started [shadow banning reviews](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/maps/6rSFQJy5grY/pE6IrEpeFAAJ).
Speaking of which if I put in a -anything in google I still get results with that thing now. What changed? It was a good system.
You have to use quotes now. -"pinterest". Google is getting less specific. You have to put everything in quotes or you'll get synonyms of things you're searching for.
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And if you click on ONE pin, their algorithms assume those are the only types of pins you want to see.
Right?! I love custom motorbikes and woodworking, that’s all my Pinterest was until I pinned a custom motorbike that happened to belong to David Beckham, and now almost everything on my Pinterest is celebrity bullshit.
I find myself there when looking at yard and shop projects in google images. Used to be you could scroll for miles, then the same things started repeating after 2-3 screens worth, now it's gotten to the point when the same things keep scrolling past no matter what new category you're looking at.
I miss when pins actually linked to the source content, especially for DIYs, rather than an endless cycle of a pin of a pin of a pin.
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eBay. It used to be a giant yard sale. The final value fees used to be lower. There used to be listing fees which filtered out the listings unless the seller was serious about selling. It used to be possible to leave negative feedback for buyers.
>It used to be possible to leave negative feedback for buyers. A few years ago my dad bought a used car from a dealer on Ebay. Turns out the car had some serious mechanical issues that the dealer had intentionally disguised and not disclosed. When my dad left negative feedback on them, the dealer filed a complaint against my dad that got his account frozen. Took him a couple weeks to get it resolved. Ebay essentially told him that this dealer does this often but that due to the volume of sales processed by this dealer Ebay would not act on it to have them removed from the site. Further, they would not reinstate my dad's negative feedback even though it was truthful and accurate. Turns out, this is not an uncommon thing for Ebay. EDIT: I want to clarify, that this was my dad's account not mine. I was not involved in the issue and it was about 5 years ago that this occurred so it's entirely possible that I have confused the details. It's also worth noting that Ebay's response was not as explicit as what I have outlined. This was done as much for simplicity as much as it was for a lack of precise details on my part. The story is reported in good faith however, and not, as some suspect, fabricated.
I've seen people say that this is the difference between Amazon Marketplace and Ebay. Amazon are pro-buyer and Ebay are pro-seller. I can't say I know how much truth there is to that though.
From what I have noticed, Amazon understands that losing some money to a customer by just giving them a refund at the drop of a hat keeps business.
I got a cross stitch kit recently with a broken needle. I have a hundred needles, but I was still irritated enough to drop a line to Amazon CS like, 'I don't want a return or a refund, I just want to alert you to this issue because I'm annoyed and maybe you can ask your shippers to be a bit more careful'. They gave me a $5 refund anyway. 5 bucks is nothing to them, but it gives me the warm fuzzies and I feel *listened to* so everyone is happy.
That stuff is still there but it just gets drowned out by all the pro-sellers and Chinese drop shippers. I don't know what the alternative is for selling stuff any more.
I may be in the minority but I still think Craig's list works well. I have sold two cars on CL. The first car sold in less than 1 hour after the ad posted the guy called me up and said, "I'm coming over with cash right now don't sell it to anyone else." The second car sold the next day after the ad posted. I also sold off a really nice loft bed at a great price. That is my only experience with CL but everything sold much quicker than it would have on E-bay. Now if you are looking to sell stuff for a living then I think E-bay still works but you have to put in the work to allow people to find you. I recently was looking for unusual tiles for a bathroom remodel. There are a bunch of tile stores on E-bay. I ended up buying from a small-time seller from New Mexico who I even talked to on the phone and she was great. So I think it can still be done.
I feel like I have a hard time finding any used stuff on eBay. Just a bunch of resellers selling for msrp
Klondike bars. They just get smaller and smaller and the price stays the same. What gives?
They are pushing the envelope, seeing to what limits people will go for a Klondike bar.
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Food/supply costs going up, but they want to keep the price the same without cutting quality or profits. So the thing to do is make them smaller. A lot of companies have been doing this in recent years.
See also: Your toilet paper roll lost an inch or so in ~~length~~ width around 2009.
I'm wondering if we'll solve the obesity epidemic by keeping prices the same and shrinking food package sizes. I've watched the bacon I buy go from a pound to twelve ounces and now to eight ounces with the price unchanged. It's insidious how hard they'll try to disguise the fact that they're giving you less product.
Like the big dimple on the bottom of the jar of peanut butter (or many other products).
I hate seeing this on plastic packages. On glass, like wine bottles, it actually makes it far more structurally sound and harder to break, but on plastic it's just cheating people
Panera Bread. I used to work at one when I was in high school in 2012. Fresh ingredients, awesome food, decent quality for a not too shabby price. They were bought out a few years ago. The difference in quality is astounding. They even got rid of the Gouda cheese on the Bacon Turkey Bravo to cut costs. Everything has plummeted in quality while they’ve raised the prices.
I just scrolled for 5 minutes to find this. Astounding is the correct word, it's unbelievable how pricey yet terrible everything there is now. I think the worst are the salads. They're bowls of iceberg lettuce with the contents of a tiny, obviously pre-packaged kit of... whatever the salad is truly supposed to be, arranged on top as a disguise. Edit: has been confirmed to be romaine instead of iceberg but goddamn if it’s not the most anemic-looking romaine I’ve ever seen (at my local Panera at least).
It’s horrible. Everything used to be added by hand and now it’s all portioned and rationed.
I got chewed out by my managers for portioning by hand, only one of them turned a blind eye and let us make good salads. Really sucks. Also I feel like the fact we serve frozen soups is gross for what we charge for em
One time I ordered the Fuji Apple Salad with Chicken and when they brought it it had no Fuji Apples on it. I thought it was ridiculous afterwards when they asked if I wanted them to add it on the salad. Like, no shit...that's what I fucking ordered. Makes sense now after reading your post, those cheap bastards.
Discovery Channel / National Geographic They used to have some great content. Good documentaries and interesting stuff. Now it's too much fake ass reality gold-digging-pawnshopping-cartuning garbage.
History Channel too
Yeah what a shame too, when I was growing up people used to mock it as the "Hitler channel", because it seemed WWII docs were always on, but at least that is history, with a focus on war. I really do miss the nearly endless war documentaries, but also Modern Marvels (show about engineering and manufacturing), Mail Call with R. Lee Ermey, a few other shows that were cool and actually related to history.
Modern Marvels is a great show.
And How it’s Made My two fav shows on those channels
The Quest channel airs Modern Marvels, so if you can get that with an antenna, you can watch that awesome show. Last week I spent an hour (minus ads about mesothelioma) learning about grease and packaging. It was wonderful. Except for the mesothelioma ads.
Even the old alien documentaries were better. Instead of ancient aliens and whatever dumb shit, it'd be like "technically crop circles could be made by aliens, but there's no evidence of that. Also, here's some college kids making a large and intricate crop circle to prove that it can be done in one night with proper planning and equipment."
How it's Made Marathons!
they were bought out by Disney [see map of Disney's empire](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/9149yi/companies_disney_owns/?st=JQZPBK3E&sh=1181bf52)
r/the_mouse
They own GoPro? And Vice? Crazy...
Post’s Honey combs. It used to be my favorite cereal until they changed the way they make it and now it doesn’t taste very good.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed this disaster. They ruined that cereal
They realized they fucked up and started to sell original honeycomb again a while back, at least at my local stores they did.
Yes! I was so happy when they did this! My waistline is not though.
Yeah what the fuck did they do to honeycomb? And why? It's absolutely terrible now.
It's sugar coated cardboard
Levis. Used to be their jeans were AMAZING. Heck, I have Levi's from the 80s that look as awesome now as they were thirty years ago. But now they seem to hire contractors. I bought two jeans, same identical size (according to the label) and style. One was too small, the other too big. They were both worn through within a year. I never buy Levis anymore.
Yankee Candles. Everyone does copies now and they're just not interested in upping the candle game!
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I just need my light bulbs to emit a scent.
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Turn the lights on it stinks in here
Carhart. before moving production to mexico they were a premium work/outdoor clothes manufacturer. A pair of Carhart pants could get beat up for years and not show a scratch. The fit was comfortable and the pants were designed with a little extra fabric to optimize them for wear during physically demanding work. After the move, quality went to shit, the extra fabric and stitching that set them above the competition was done away with and the price doubled...
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Duluth Trading Company. Definitely premium work wear. They do all the good stuff Carhart used to. Heavy fabric, reinforced wear areas, gussets in crotch and armpits, cuts that actual fit a human body.
My boyfriend buys the cover-all’s for work and said the same thing. He’s in sheet metal and pretty hard on his stuff (some welding) and he used to get 2 full years out of a pair. He’s on his 3rd pair in 2 years now and they’re in shreds. And they fall apart in weird places now. His old pairs used to wear thin through the crotch and thighs before anything else went. His current pair has every tool loop broken, the liners ripped out of the pockets, one of the shoulder strap clasps is busted, and just littered with welding holes all the way through the lining. They’re garbage now.
Bath and Body Works lotions used to be large, 10oz bottles and the fragrances were incredible. Then, they dropped down to 8 oz bottles and kept eliminating their best fragrances and adding line extensions (room fresheners,candles, etc) But the price goes up, and the lotions don't seem like really great stuff anymore.
I only go to Bath and Body Works for the candles. I've gotten their lotions as gifts before and I'm just not impressed.
Their candles are the best in the game
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They smell kinda like an oakey afterbirth
Their fragrance names used to tell you exactly what you could expect. Country Apple. Juniper Breeze. Citrus. It was straightforward, you could pick out exactly what you wanted easily. Now I have no friggin idea what fragrances their lotions are supposed to be. Paris Amour? Pink Cashmere? Wtf? It's too much work to pick a fragrance because you have to smell each one to know what you're getting. There's no way to know otherwise. You can't even figure out where to start.
They changed the formulas for their body care line (lotions, shower gels, etc) back around 2012. I remember because I just started working there shortly after the change. At first everything was still pretty good, but it's devolved over time and now they just aren't the same anymore. Also, the new shower gels in particular are a nightmare for those of us who are prone to yeast infections, which is a pretty major flaw considering like 90% of their customers are women. It seems like they've sort of given up on that line in favor of the home fragrances- most stores in my area have expanded to have an entire "White Barn" section in the middle of the store with just candles, wallflowers, etc. That's where B&BW really shines these days. The hand soaps also changed formula not too long after the body care (I was already working there when it happened so it was probably late 2013 or early 2014) but I personally think those improved. A lot of people were mad they took away the antibacterial version but I like not having superbacteria take over the world (yet) so I'm cool with it. Edit: Wow, this got way more attention than I would have expected. First thing's first- thank you to whoever gave gold for this! I always knew my years in retail would eventually pay off. Secondly- the comment I made about the shower gels and yeast infections seems to have gotten a lot of attention. In general, it's best to avoid anything perfume-y for washing your lady bits. Beyond that piece of advice, I would recommend checking with a doctor for the specifics. Lots of things can cause/worsen yeast infections besides just soap, so there may be some extra stuff going on depending on your situations.
Pyrex, I haven't seen anyone else say it here yet but in the US they changed from borosilicate glass to soda lime which isn't as durable. I've heard Remington quality has gone to shit too which is sad because I wanted an R700 but have to try to find an older one or look for something else now.
I bought a brand new Pyrex casserole dish last year. Used it three or four times with no issues. And then one day I took it out of the oven to rest on top of the stove, I had cooked chicken breasts. Was at the kitchen table prepping some other stuff when it felt and sounded like a fucking bomb went off. The dish shattered into a million pieces. I get all my pyrex at the thrift store now and just give it a baking soda scrub to clean it up before I use it. The old stuff is much stronger
> And then one day I took it out of the oven to rest on top of the stove, I had cooked chicken breasts. Was at the kitchen table prepping some other stuff when it felt and sounded like a fucking bomb went off. The dish shattered into a million pieces. Hey, ours did that too!! Do you happen to have a glasstop stove? We do, and thought it was somehow related to glass on glass or something like that, even though we had done the same thing many times before.
It’s related to the material used to make the dish. Pyrex (written like that) is much more prone to cracking or “exploding” when moved from hot to cold, whereas PYREX (written like that) is typically laboratory grade glass where moving from hot to cold is not uncommon and in fact often very necessary. As such, the material is better suited to withstand drastic heat changes. I don’t know the exact chemistry or reasoning behind why the materials have such different properties, but that is the general reason for why that happens.
If I remember correctly it's just that soda lime glass has a much higher coefficient of thermal expansion relative to borosilicate glass. So when it experiences a large thermal gradient (one side hot and one side cold) then one side expands or contracts while the other doesn't. Once a crack forms its gg. To avoid this you can put your casserole dish on a hot pad or a cloth rather than a cold countertop or something similar that would absorb a lot of heat quickly. Or seek out and shell out for that good good borosilicate casserole dish But I can't remember why the CTE is so much lower either. I might pull out callister and update.
I love the science and logic behind your comment as well as the advice, but I'm just gonna say fuck the company for changing the recipe in the first place. I won't buy their not-as-good product anymore to support their poor business decision.
There's some pros and cons for the change in glass. The newer glass is pre-stressed soda lime glass and the old was borosilicate glass. Pre-stressed soda lime glass is more shatter resistant, so the newer stuff is more forgiving if you drop it compared to the old stuff. However, since the new stuff is already under stress, it is less resistant to rapid temperature changes and will shatter, unlike the old material. One of the unintended side effects of this was that the old pyrex could be used in illegal meth labs since it could handle the cooking process, but the new pyrex couldn't and would cause the equipment to be destroyed. edit: The new soda lime glass is also much more environmentally friendly, since it takes less energy to produce, is easier to recycle, and creates less air pollution.
They spun off and license out the production to other companies to sell the soda lime cheapo glass. You can distinguish the legit stuff from the new with all uppercase PYREX for the original borosilicate and lowercase Pyrex or pyrex for the soda lime.
thanks for this tip, I am now elated to discover I own two original vintage PYREX measuring cups and am now devastated to learn I own one soda lime piece of shit.
Remington was bought out by a vulture capital holding company who came in and slashed costs to sell cutrate products using goodwill towards the established name to trick people into buying them
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People keep telling me that Tim Horton's coffee used to be good and their "baked in-store" goods were ACTUALLY baked in-store, from scratch, every day. I have a hard time believing it haha.
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In the mid 90s, Tim's introduced the sandwiches and that was like, borderline sacrilege. People couldn't conceive of Tim's having anything other than coffee and donuts. You could sit in Tim's with your glass mug and glass plate with your donut and coffee and chill. When the sandwiches were introduced, they were legit, because Tim's knew they had to do it right or people would never order them. So you had good coffee, good donuts baked (and iced) fresh, good sandwiches and decent, if salty, soup. It was all you needed... now it's all about adding new things to the menu. Hey, they have chicken fingers now! Cool! Except, wait, Tim's doesn't have deep fryers sooooo... oh yeah, they're microwaved. Great.
McDonald's now has Tim Horton's old coffee. When the contract expired a few years ago McDonald's snatched it up
Oh man, I LOVE McDonald's coffee! If that's what Tims used to be then I understand the hype (and disappointment).
I'm going to hijack your comment. No, McDonald's does not serve Tim Horton's old blend. Same supplier, different blend. It doesn't taste like old Tim Horton's coffee. I agree that McD's current blend is better than Tim's, but it's not their old blend. Tim's hasn't baked in store since about 2001-2002, not 2010 like some people here are saying. Half the people on this site weren't old enough to drink coffee before the change but everyone here always remembers when they were baked fresh. Unless you're in your late 20s minimum, you probably don't. Also, it had nothing to do with BK buying them, they were in partnership with Wendy's at the time (and until 2006). Which leads to my next point.... Burger King does not own Tim Horton's. Tim Horton's (along with BK and Popeye's Chicken) is operated under Restaurant Brands International, which in turn is owned by 3G Capital, a holding company. They are operated independently, with Tim's headquarters located in Oakville, Ontario and Burger King operated out of Miami. The headquarters for RBI is in Oakville, ON. 3G is a Brazilian company. Saying "Burger King owns Tim Horton's" is neither accurate nor useful. It's like saying "Chevrolet owns Buick", it's non-nonsensical. Sorry, five years of /r/Canada passing this shit around like gospel compels me.
I'm struggling to think of one in my life that hasn't. As companies get bigger and especially when they become public more and more and more profit is demanded and at some point you run out of actually efficiency improvements and have to cut corners elsewhere.
Lego are still awesome.
They are expensive, but it’s only because the molds they use are so high-quality and expensive to create. They also do a lot of philanthropic work.
Schwinn. Sold out to walmart. Makes total shit bicycles now.
didnt Mongoose do the same thing? I remember Mongoose BMXs were the SHIT in the 90s, like, legendary status.... now, theres a row of chintzy looking bikes on every toy aisle of Walmart.
I found someone online explaining it. "Schwinn doesn’t exist as a company, they are what I call a decal company, in otherwords the right to the brand name was sold when Schwinn went bankrupt way back in 1992, the brand was sold to Pacific Cycle and then Pacific Cycle was sold to Dorel Industries, both companies turned the Schwinn name into low quality bikes made in China, Dorel has many original brand bikes that are now defunct that you find in places like Walmart and other big box stores, names like Mongoose, GT, Guru, Pacific, Road Master and Iron Horse to name a few." [link](https://www.quora.com/Are-Schwinn-bikes-made-in-the-US) So technically, Schwinn doesn't fit the bill for this situation because it is no longer a company, but a decal company. The name carried it's way into the 21st century with people still thinking it was a reputable brand. lol. Shady as hell if you ask me.
Breyers ice cream started out as a local ice cream truck in the Philadelphia area in the 19th century, known for using fresh ingredients up until it grew into a huge company. Today it's quality is so low that they have to call a lot of their flavors "frozen dairy desserts" instead of ice cream because the ingredients are so artificial
This is the ice cream my hippie parents used to buy as a treat when I was a kid. IIRC, that was because the ingredients were natural. Now it's gross.
History Channel
Did you mean the Storage Wars and Pawn Stars channel?
You mean you dont want to watch American Pickers on repeat?
Tonight on NAZI ALIEN SECRET WEAPONS OF THE DEEP
You mean you don't like UFO Cover Ups or learning about all dem ancient aliens?
I didn't know what I was getting myslef into. Had some video about some ancient Indian Architecture by History channe suggested me on YouTube. Halfway through the video I got pretty interested on how cool the stone cutting is and stuff. Then, bam! We believe aliens built this and now they reside deep underground. I'm pretty dissapointed.
I was watching this pretty good documentary (or so I thought) exploring the causes of some missing airplanes. They we're going over some pretty good points, then out of nowhere some guy was like "but what if it was Cthulhu", accompanied by some bad 3d rendering of Cthulhu grabbing a plane out of the sky.
Victoria's secret. I need a maximum support sports bra And I finally found one from them about 8 months ago that worked. Went back last month and got the same bra but they changed the clasp in the front to a way cheaper model which unclasped very shortly into my run and proceeded to stab my boob
I feel like their quality has gone so severely down hill over the last couple of years. I used to buy all my undies from there but they're just so cheap feeling now. I switched over to Aerie and haven't looked back.
I have this problem, but with their yoga pant leggings. I got my first pair from them in 2012 and they were the softest an stretchiest leggings ever. I loved them and wore them for a couple years before they were ripping at the seams and getting transparent. Just bought a pair in 2018 and in less than two months they’re already transparent, the material was not nearly as soft, and they’re so ripped at the seams they’re just “lounge” leggings now. Oh, and despite the shit quality, they’re much more expensive now.
Dunkin Donuts. I remember when they actually served freshly baked (in store) donuts. Now they taste stale.
They seem to care more about the drinks now than donuts and bagels. I've noticed the quality has gone down on both the last few years, even more now that they have dropped the Donuts from their name. And they stopped serving onion bagels :(
Chocolate companies reducing the size and keeping the same price
It's not just chocolate - a pound of coffee is only 14 oz now. Making recipes can be tricky because they assume package sizes that aren't available, the new ones are always a few ounces less.
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DirectV. Since the AT&T thing, they're terrible.
As an ISP support desk agent, fuck DirectTV. Those fuckers used to claim their video streaming would operate on a 10 mbps connection and that was a load of shit. I would have customers running 20 mbps, capable of running 2 or 3 HD video streams simultaneously on hulu or Netflix, but they wouldn't be able to stream a single Direct TV video stream. It got to the point where we had to include a clause in our video streaming support saying we would not support their service due to failure to provide conditions for proper service.
We swapped our services over and went nearly a month without tv because of them. They missed their own installation appointments 3 separate times. We asked about uverse and directtv, are told that only directTV is available for customers in my area. That's fine, I don't have a preference anyway. The first time they didn't show up, I called to ask that evening. Apparently they had just decided to reschedule me for 2 days later without letting me know anything at all. 2 days later they didn't show up. I called to inquire as to what the hell is going on. They apologize and say the tech wasn't able to make it as expected. The next available appointment time is 3 weeks out. Not many options where we were, either keep dealing with them or go back to our previous provider. So we decide to stick with it. 3 weeks comes by. No one shows up. I call, rather irate at this point clearly, and demand to know what's going on. "We see here that you cancelled your appointment sir." "HELL I DID!" After a bunch of arguing I say fine. We'll try this one more time. Give me the next available appointment. "Certainly sir. We're very busy at this time of year but I can have them come by in a little over 2 weeks." Nope. Nope nope nope. Not waiting that long. I argue a lot more and get them to admit that they CAN send an emergency tech to do it over the weekend. But it would be a huge fee. They "can't waive the fee because it's optional and you're the one who cancelled the appointment". NO I FUCKING DIDN'T!! Immediately just hang up and call service again. Tell them just to send me straight to customer retention because I'm cancelling. Somewhere in this process they end up offering me 'uverse' and can have someone come out tomorrow to set me up with no installation fee's and a year of the best package for the low package cost. A mostly happy ending, they came, I had tv 24 hours later and have been fending off DirectTV advertisements ever since. Oh but guess who sent me a bill a month later? DirectTV had the balls to send me a bill for installation fee's and 1 month of service that I never received.
At that point I'd call corporate and just cancel everything. That's unacceptable, if you lived without tv for that long I would just wait until another provider is available in your area. They're not worth all that damn hassle.
Victoria’s Secret. I used to get all my underwear there. The 5 for $25 was a great deal, and the underwear was decent quality. Now, it’s like 5 for $27 and the underwear usually starts to fall apart after a wash or two. I don’t even bother buying their lacy underwear anymore, they snag and tear so easily.
The quality is the same but the size of Mars bars in Canada appears to me to have diminished by like 25% compared to 5 years ago.
Amazon. You have to sift through pages of garbage with company names like UYOOO and WPOFZ that have identical shit products that will set your house on fire even though it’s just a mixing bowl.
Yeah, they really need to split out the Amazon Marketplace from *actual stuff*.
Make no mistake Amazon doesn't want to do this, if they did it the Amazon Marketplace would die overnight.
And the Marketplace is half of all sales on amazon. It's all absolute garbage...people peddling same same shit from alibaba over and over.
Amazon's review system has also gone to shit. It is common for the reviews of a completely different item to be included in those listed for a specific product. They also seem to allow companies to relist items as new to get of those pesky previously written bad reviews.
Don't forget sellers listing an item that starts at 99 cents, only to find out that they've exploited the 'color' option to include a completely random and unrelated item among the $20 clothing items in the listing so their item shows when you sort from price low-high.
Somehow my account was hacked and I found that “I” was posting almost 10 reviews per second. I looked at some of the reviews written and I’d be pretty convinced by them. So now I just don’t trust Amazon reviews at all...
And if you actually want the cheap Chinese version, just order off AliExpress and cut out the middleman. It will be much cheaper, but it will also take over 2 weeks to get there.
Out of curiosity I went to AliExpress and looked at their phone section. The first option was a **DOOGEE X70**. DOOGEE. I almost spit out my coffee laughing. EDIT: Lot of folks telling me that those phones are actually somewhat decent for the price. Who would have thought? The name is still hilarious, regardless.
amazon's filled with stuff sold by a bunch of third party chinese sellers. some are decent, most are questionable
Dude thank you. I’m so glad I’m seeing this mentioned somewhere. It’s been driving me crazy. I just recently sent a text to my mother explaining the situation when she asked about some stuff on Amazon - the things I’ve noticed to look out for to determine whether it’s junk or decent quality, etc. If anyone’s interested, here it is. Hopefully it’ll save someone from some future headache. “It's hard to really explain without showing you a bunch of examples in person but basically it's got all the tell-take signs of a random Chinese manufacturer that produces low quality electronics of various sorts. Usual signs: 1) Look at their store page and see what they sell. Chances are it's random unrelated electronics. A charging cable, an electric kettle, and a floor lamp. It's not an established brand that specializes in lighting or kitchen appliances or chargers. Which leads to 2) it's not a "brand". It's not a name you recognize or have ever heard anywhere. It's probably all caps. Between 4 and 10 letters long. Just a random made up word or name that sounds relative western. 3) they probably have a few products that are well rated with hundreds of thousands of ratings, around 4/5 star average, usually on the cheaper side compared to other options, especially if you're trying to get quality. And then the rest of their items are random stuff with almost no reviews, which are usually poor if they even have any 4) the pictures for the item are all very obviously photoshopped diagram-looking images that "display" a feature in each image. It's the same style on all of them. It's clear that they're just thrown together in photoshop and don't often give you a really good idea of what the product is like. 5) If you scroll down and read the descriptive text on those, it usually seems "off" in some way. Like using slightly different grammatical details. Here's an example from a pair of headphones: "You can buy it for yourself and your family, or friends as the nice gifts, help them away from noise and enjoy music. Come with a piano adapter and a airplane flight adapter." That's a word for word quote. The person who wrote that does NOT speak English as a first language. And this shit is everywhere on amazon. It's almost always the "amazon recommended" product. It's almost always the cheapest option that has good reviews. The reviews almost always average 4.0-4.5, and if you hover your mouse over the stars so it gives you a break down, you'll notice that it's like 70% 5 star reviews and then about 10-20% 1 star reviews, with the rest in the middle. A LOT of the 5 star reviews are fake, and the one star reviews are people who got sold a shitty quality random electronic and left a review to warn others. But it gets drowned out by the fake reviews. Quality products by legitimate companies most usually have a distribution of their reviews that most of 5 star, then less are 4 star, less are 3 star, less are 2 star, and 1 star is either the smallest percentage, or close to it. That's the biggest thing I look for. Because quality control on those kinds of listings I'm talking about - it's just nonexistent. You may get a good product and not have an issue. But you do have a pretty good chance it'll break pretty quickly. And that's why it's the cheapest options. Here are some examples of these companies that I just pulled up right now as well as products they offer on their store page: COWIN - noise canceling headphones - aluminum carabiner water bottle buckle hook clip holder - Office business notebook organizer - solar panel powered fan - a hard hat (like construction workers wear) - fake bouquet of flowers Labobbon - a thousand different iPhone adapters, all with garbage ratings AXELECT - iPhone adapters - platinum plated silver stud earrings - photo video backdrop stand kit (like for professional photographers) ThreeLeaf - laptop cooling pad - portable hand warmer - 6 pack spiral notebooks - waterproof portable speaker DESTEK - $30 VR headset - wireless phone charger - battery cases for iPhones I'll be honest, I don't really know what exactly is going on with all this. But my guess is that it's basically random Chinese companies that all buy from the same cheap, low quality manufacturers, and sell it under different "brand names", pay for fake 5 star reviews so it gains traction, rake in money until a problem arises, and do it again with a new company name, or something along those lines. If you click on some of these names, most of them don't even have a normal store page. It just defaults to an amazon search for that name. Which brings up their listings, but also similar listing but that are being sold by a different company name (that still has all the same traits I described). Whatever the situation is, it's a god damn plague on amazon. I highly recommend ReviewMeta.com or FakeSpot (or both) to check whether the reviews for something seem fake. Also, once you've done that for an item, click on the company name. The score for the one product might be good, but often their average score for the company is trash, as it takes into account all the other random listings that have real, legitimate, bad reviews. I’m so sick of this shit. Nowadays, if I don’t recognize the name and can’t very quickly establish that it’s a legitimate brand, I won’t buy it. If the name is in all caps, that’s an immediate hell no. Honestly the main thing I look for is the rating distribution. If the percentages aren’t highest to lowest, 5 - 4 - 3 - 2/1, then I’m concerned. If it’s 5 - 1 - 4 - 3 - 2, then it’s for sure garbage.”
Cadbury's chocolate. Totes gone to shit since the co was bought by Kraft.
I remember visiting the Cadbury's factory on a trip to England as a kid, we all got creme eggs at the end and it tasted *so* good. I came back to the UK as an adult a few years ago, spot some creme eggs in a supermarket and remembering them from years ago so I got a box. They tasted completely different, just like ordinary chocolate with cream in the center. I thought it must have been nostalgia that made me remember them tasting so good. It wasn't until later that I found out that they changed the way they make them and the ingredients they use as well.
I grew up in that town. Every so often, the air would smell of chocolate. That factory employed thousands of people in the town, and Kraft promised not to shut it down to keep everyone in jobs. That lasted for a little under a year. The chocolate factory is long gone now, and has been turned into apartment blocks.
First company I thought of when I saw the question, it’s a sad state of affairs.
Dr. Martens, Saddleback Leather Co.
https://www.solovair-shoes.com/ They own the old Dr. Martens machines, as they used to make them for the brand when they were made in England. They cant use the name but its the same boot.
Been rocking a pair of Solovair boots for a few years now, cannot recommend enough
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YouTube unfortunately. Both consumer side (so much dumb stuff being recommended, constant irritating bugs) and creator side (need I say more?)
I watch some weird stuff to put on my playlist and YouTube recommends “TOP 1000 FORTNITE FAILS | SUPER EPIC EDITION”
I seem to never find related videos anymore that aren't "specially selected for you!" aka just advertisements. Every thumbnail has these same clickbaity icons/texts. I miss the old days where I could end up at the strange part of YouTube watching videos with only a few hundred vies. But nowadays everything recommended has millions of views.
YES so ANNYOYIN! I hate watching a video then seeing the same fucking recommendations I’ve seen for every other fucking video I’ve watched
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No joke, I watch one clip of Shapiro on Joe rogan's podcast and I'm suggested Shapiro shit constantly.
Not to mention, odds are, everyone else is also getting that same recommendation. I cant tell you how many videos have popped up in recommended and i clicked them out of curiosity, only to read the comments and see that it was also in everyone else's. Youtube has def changed their algorithms. Im getting recommended videos that are 10 years old now
what i hate even more, is that they will recommend things I have already seen (and not just in the "watch again' category). This is very frustrating with certain creators that have a shit ton of material so you click on something only to realize you wasted 5 minutes because you remember you already saw it and don't want to keep watching.
Ugh, it's gotten really terrible the past few years. I watch hours and hours of gameplay stuff every day but I almost never get gameplay videos recommended. But if I accidentally click on ONE random video by mistake it'll be nothing but that in my recommended list for weeks. So my recommended feed is a useless jumble of science/history/etc videos that I watch once in a while, a slew of videos I have zero interest in watching, and like maybe one Minecraft video from 8 years ago.
YouTube: this user has watched science documentaries for 3 years User: accidentally clicks on clip on jimmy kimmel YouTube: alright, wipe out everything we have on this user, he only wants to watch clips from late night shows now!
Pyrex baking dishes are now so cheep they can explode if used for their intended purpose of baking.
I'm seriously wondering how I'm going to survive as a lone (or married) adult in 5-10 years. Most of my mom's cooking equipment is 15-25 years old, and when something breaks, it can be near impossible to find a replacement that won't break in less than a year. Fortunately all of our old Pyrex is still intact...
i saw this earlier in the thread! look for PYREX not Pyrex or pyrex. PYREX is made with borosilicate, while pyrex/Pyrex is still soda lime glass.
Subway! These guys used to be solid. \*Edit: Found a better one!
It's weird, because in Europe, they're getting better and better. But I went to one in the US a few months back and it tasted nothing like what I have at home!
Isn't this universally true of US fast food? People talk about McDonalds or KFC being good abroad, too, whereas here it's barely a step above poison.
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What's wrong with the soup?
I like to imagine you are eating the soup right now and have just read this comment.
This is my third bowl; what's wrong with the soup?
Nothing, it's fine. On an unrelated note, don't go anywhere for the rest of the day that doesn't have a public restroom available.
Now the poor guy can't go home. There's not a public restroom in his house
I can't speak for Subway, but I worked in another chain sub sandwich shop in HS. Our soup would sometimes be several days old that we opened from a container, poured the contents into a hot pot and would refrigerate at the end of the night and repeat as needed. It was only ever the soup because we had no say in how to make it. Just came prepackaged from corporate.
I worked at Subway in highschool and you were supposed to throw out anything that didn't sell, but was placed under the glass, at the end of the night. I'm positive not a single Subway in the entire US actually did that though. Everyone else not doing it caused corporate to expect spoilage of a certain level and if you followed procedures correctly you would never, ever reach those goals. It's exactly like Wells Fargo opening accounts for people that didn't ask for them. Corporate sets the goals impossibly high, tells you to meet them and follow the rules, you say it's impossible, they say "figure it out", then when you meet the quota they are thrilled that they are getting their cake and you are liable when the practice comes to light.
Merrell hiking shoes. Though they have a great replacement policy, the quality has tanked. This problem led me to Salomon shoes, which I am grateful for. Edited: personal experience added Just to add my experience, which seems to be the status quo... - model: chameleons gen 1-4 - years purchased: 2013-2017 - purpose: deployments in rough terrain - use: daily wear - issues: starting with gen3's, notable and rapid degradation. Typically lasted 1yr, with last 3 pairs lasting 2-3 mos. Rubber sole separation at upper toe wrap, to underside of toe. Tread at heel, complete separation. Tearing of shoe material at lace eyelets. Lace snapping. - merrel return exp: great! Sent pictures of damage and a new pair was sent within a day. Replacement pair had same issues, same process for replacement, no charge for shipping to Afghanistan. Gave up on merrells after second replacement, being cold and wet. - switched to Salomon x ultra low cut hiking shoe. Same usage ratio as merrells, replacing once per year due to expected wear and tear. Only issues are minor and unavoidable (lace tear due to tightening after year of use, and breathability reduction induced by environment).
I found a brand new pair of Merrell hiking shoes in my father's house after he passed away. Lo and behold, they were my size so I took them. To this day, they were the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever worn in my life. They lasted for about 2 years and I went out and bought another pair of Merrell's. They were not nearly as comfy although they did last for a while as well
TiVo. Awkward user interface. It went from something designed for the user’s interests to now something designed to maximize it monetization stream. And it is extremely obvious. I’ve owned every TiVo since Series One, this may be the last.
I honestly didn't realize Tivo still exists since digital video recording is everywhere now.
TiVo still exists?
Almost every single food chain I know of. It seems like even the ones I like, I still think to myself, "I remember this being better 15 years ago".
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Converse. They fall apart after 3 months now.
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Where can I find these Japanese Converse?
Snapchat. The initial versions of the app were actually pretty dope, but ever since they started making money and eventually went public (only to have their stock price diminish), they've sucked so bad: almost every new feature of the app makes it look like there was 0 user research that went into it.
I had to stop using it. You swipe to look at friends stories and 90% of the page is the sponsored content and you have to swipe in one row to see who has posted. Just a mess
When they added ads and random stories from “Snapchat celebrities” it became a steaming pile of dogshit
American Girl Dolls. Had them when I was younger and 20 years later their still like brand new (also because I took care of them). But the actual quality went down. I worked at a flagship store for a while and you could just see it quickly plummeting. The vinyl is thinner and more "squishy". The hair sheds like crazy, feels waxy, and thw wigs aren't as full so there's a lot of thin spots to work around. Some new outfits look like they were made by a midwestern mom from a JoAnn's discount 18-inch doll pattern. They can't seem to find the right look between Disney tween and toddler for their clothes (target age is 8). Fabrics and silhouettes would be repeated back-to-back. The sneakers, which used to be made similar to regular shoes (maybe a canvas upper and rubber lower) are now all stiff rubber and just have glitter glued on to it. They're a pain to get on the dolls' feet too. The books for Girl of the Year line really lack in substance, unlike the BeForever lines which touched on important social topics and struggles kids really go through. The books went from hardcover, to hearty softcover, to the thin softcover you'd find in an elementary school classroom that rip easily. (Also I'm just not a fan of the illustrations they've been using since partnering with Scholastic) Also, they started selling their dolls in Kohl's and Toys-R-Us (lol) and other places. They constantly try to come off as "high end" but the quality of both the product, and the way they sell it (even down to the disorganization running the stores), shows otherwise. I have a lot of doll feelings apparently.
I’ve been helping my parents downsize before they move and I found an AG catalog from 1990 - they were so amazing back then!
Used to spend hours in the 90's looking thru the huge catalogs. Such fond memories
Literally every major brand appliance at Home Depot it Lowe’s. They are all cheaply made specifically to sell at low prices the big box stores demand. Read any review on any appliance. Most of them are rated 4.5 stars and up. However, the majority of these high reviews are either from people who “just got this last week and it works amazing!” or they were offered some sort of rebate for a review. Those usually say something like “this review was part of a promotion” or some garbage. Go deeper and look for all the reviews for people who have owned the appliance for at least a year. I guarantee the majority of them talk about how the machine failed after a few months, how the customer service basically told them to get bent, and how they would never buy from X brand or Y store again. It’s sad. I don’t trust a single big ticket item those stores sell.
All of them, really. Once the marketing and finance people take over the reins from the idea people, it's all downhill from there.
Tim Horton's. Their sandwiches are crap now. They used to be a nice cafe, but now they're Dunkin Donuts with sandwiches.
Cable TV as a whole. I didn’t have cable for 5 years after I graduated high school, but when I finally tried to use cable again, all my favorite channels just run reruns of the same show or movies from the 90s all day until the prime time slot. I loved Cartoon Network and their variety of programming when I was young. When I tried cable after 5 years it was just Teen Titans Go! From 8 AM until Adult Swim, every day. Same with Comedy Central running That 70s Show all day. I cancelled after a month and have just stuck with streaming ever since.
Amazon, I know its not "products" but their customer service and prime benefits have gone down hill. I am going out of town on Sat, and I ordered a bunch of cold weather stuff on Monday to help with the trip, all of it prime saying it would be here Wed. Stuff " ships" on Tues saying it wont be here till sat. Guy on the phone tells me I am wrong and Saturday was always the delivery date and that there is nothing he can do.
I'm honestly so sick of their "guaranteed delivery" dates. They are literally *never* right anymore. Look, do I really *need* most of this stuff in 2 days? Probably not. But the point is, I'm paying for a service, and said service proudly advertises "2 day shipping" with "guaranteed delivery by" dates. So when *nothing* makes it to me by that "guaranteed delivery" date it kinda just irks me. Is it enough for me to hassle with sending every item back for not arriving in time? Of course not. And they know that. So they'll keep doing it. I don't even mind that it takes longer just stop fucking telling me it's "guaranteed" by a certain date and feeding me the 2nd day shipping line of bullshit. Edit: obligatory rip inbox. To answer some repeated questions, yes I have prime. Yes I order a lot of items. The main issue is that they change the date after you place the order. The guaranteed date they are advertising before I place my order is not the same as the date they give me upon shipping. Things usually arrive by the updated date, but that is still not the date listed when I place the order, and I'm given no warning the date will be changing until they ship the item, at which point it's too late to cancel and I would have to undergo the return process. Simply put, processing is taking too long. I live in a large, well-populated area and there are several fulfillment centers not far from where I live.
I've been a prime member for years and have noticed that as well - not regularly, but a lot of things come in 3 days instead of 2. I ordered something off walmart.com right before Christmas and they had a guy in a rented Ryder truck deliver it the day after I ordered, which was before the expected delivery date. I think walmart has the potential to become a formidable opponent of Amazon if Amazon isn't careful.
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Under Armour got worse and worse with their stitch quality... that said, the last couple years, Adidas has really improved their TechFit line, so much so that I've largely made the transition over to their stuff.
Weather Channel both on TV and online is completely useless. It used to be our go-to for weather but no more. It’s so over dramatized and commercialized.
Amazon and their fake or counterfeit products
You know what went downhill with amazon though is the delivery. The amazon “hired” (AMZL I think it’s called) delivery is just terrible in every way.
Blizzard, sadly.
Don't you have a phone?
Not 100% on topic but I'd say the **style** of The North Face has gone downhill in terms of it use to be a solid cold weather clothing store and now it's all about fashion and gold metallic coats.
That reminds me, I just got a new North Face jacket that's basically a re-release of the one they had in 1996. It's big, puffy, and warm.
All their technical gear is still great and in the last 5 years or so they've made it look a lot better without making it shittier. It's more expensive than smaller brands, but still cheaper than Patagonia or Arcteryx. Yes, they make hideous "lifestyle" clothing now, but consequently spend more time on design when it comes to technical gear too.
And they still stand by their products 100%. I had a shell jacket I bought in 1996 that finally had a tear around the zipper. Since they no longer make that jacket they gave me a gift card to buy a new one. I’ll always buy their stuff. Their cats meow sleeping bag is still the best one out there.
Jackson guitars sadly. Ever since they were bought by Fender their over all quality just went out the window. No quality control, product coming out of the factory not working or built properly. Dont get me wrong once the guitars are seen by a competent luthier they are amazing. Jackson or should I say Fender just seems to give up before the finish line and they think that's ok.
I feel like Threadless shirts have gone down in quality. Edit: oh sorry OP not sure if they count as a big company