History proves that most things decay over time . This doesn’t just go for physical objects, though, but for things like concepts, services, and designs. They never seem to be quite as good as they used to be.
A Reddit thread asked people to share things that used to be great, but are terrible now, and people were happy to air out their grievances in the replies.
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MTV.
“It was so good back in the 90s. Actual music videos, shows that featured artists, MTV Unplugged , Daria , Beavis and Butthead , Aeon Flux , TRL , Celebrity Death Match … Then Pimp My Ride and Cribs were pretty fun though it was the start of reality tv style shows.”
“Going back further, 80s MTV was awesome,” added another comment. “There would be 5-6 hours straight of videos on weekend afternoons.”
Craftsman.
“I never used one of their tools until this year. It’s a brushless drill and it’s a piece of garbage. Shakes like hell without a bit in it and vibrates out of drill mode. It’s brand new and used to mix very small amounts of liquid so it’s no under stress. Glad I am a cheap bastard, I just use Ryobi until they break.”
Doc Martens.
“They sold the trademark to a Chinese company and changed the real product to Solevair.”
“Same story with Blundstones. Got a pair 8 years ago, wore them basically every day in the winter (kinda mild here). I’ve had the treads replaced once but aside from that they’re fine. My dad got identical ones a couple years after me and they basically fell apart immediately,” added another comment.
Thrifting.
“The internet & resellers ruined it. You go into your average thrift store, and they’ve priced anything cool based on what some nincompoop on eBay is asking for it. Sure, you can ask 150 for an old T shirt or some vintage doo-dad, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth that much.”
OKCupid.
“Yep exactly. The match level really worked well. You could find a damn soulmate on there if you answered enough questions. My SO and I had like a 96% match. We got along instantly and have so much in common. That was years ago though, and I hear it’s basically like Tinder now but more pointless. There used to not be swiping and all of that. […] I’m lucky that I found my SO before they changed it.”
Breyers Ice Cream.
“It’s gotten so bad that the vast majority of their flavors aren’t even allowed to be classified as ice cream. Now, most of them are ‘Frozen Dairy Dessert’.”
Cooking Websites.
“Everyone knows the struggle of scrolling through 273 paragraphs of [expletive] before getting to the recipe, but now some […] websites are putting a 2nd page inside the first where after you get past the 273 paragraphs it’s like ‘now click here for the recipe’. Rage inducing.”
Yahoo Answers.
“I used to answer tons of questions on Yahoo Answers when I was in college like 09-11 around then. I loved it when I was bored. I’m sure I still have a ton of points from answering questions. The last time I want on there was probably sometime in 2013 to ask a simple question and the amount of immature and lecture-y responses I got was almost jarring to me compared to how it once was. That ended my time on there.”
Amazon.
“It’s slowly turning into Wish.”
“I heard before that in the warehouse, the same items will be in the same bin, even if they’re from different sources. So the counterfeit items get masked by the real ones. Is this still true, I wonder?” asked another comment.
Furthermore, Amazon reviews.
“Amazon product answers are also a [expletive] show…there are actually people that will give I don’t know as an answer….ok….so STFU. Fake reviews also blow….4.5 star rating and the featured reviews [expletive] all over it.”
Kids being able to play outside.
“Maybe not so much in the cities, but in the suburbs there was all these open fields and forests to go into, you could stay out till the sun went down just riding your bike. Now those fields and forests are paved over and turned into a strip mall. Those big areas with play grounds? Bulldozed for some [expletive] half assed jungle gym.”
McDonald’s.
“About twice every year I go ‘Damn, a Big Mac sounds good, why don’t I eat them more often?’ so I go and I buy one, and I think ‘Oh right, that’s why.’ The older, better, stuff still holds a weird place in my mind where I still think it’s going to be that right up until I actually try it again.”
Facebook.
“It seemed like such a cool idea at first. Find lost friends! Maintain relationships more easily! But people.”
Another person added, “Facebook not only showed us how much of a façade our friends put up around us, but also how much we’d rather they keep on the façade.”
YouTube.
“There seems to be a general model. Be awesome and don’t care about making money. Grow very popular and large. Cash in by doing away with all the awesome and carefully trying to find the threshold of tolerance of your users for ads/cost/other and staying right on it. Google, Facebook, everyone’s doing it.”
Dating.
“So true. Especially in your 30s. It used to be common to meet someone in person and start a conversion. Now people look at you like your face is falling off if you try to talk to them. […] The toxic numbers game that is online dating leaves a lot to be desired.”
Nickelodeon.
Someone replied to this entry and brought up an interesting documentary, “Just finished watching The Orange Years on Hulu, really great documentary on early/90s Nickelodeon. Brought back a lot of great memories I have of those simpler times.”
Cars.
“They used to be awesome. Affordable. And fixable. Now they’re the cheapest pieces of crap and highly overcharged. They’re faster than they used to be maybe but the cost isn’t worth the parts. And they fail so easily.”
Someone added that this is heavily brand dependent, as some have gotten worse while others have gotten better.
Streaming Services.
“[…] Netflix was op back in the day, now you have to have 15 different services if you want to watch all your shows.”
Someone else added, “We are basically back to paying the same amount we used to pay for cable (very possibly more).”
Buying a Home.
“The search to buy your first home used to be exciting and filled with choices. Now it’s ‘take it or leave it’ overpriced homes you can’t afford, in a terrible neighborhood. Or continue paying your super high rent.”
The internet in general.
“I used to be able to search Google for a subject and then get a list of reliable websites to read from. Now it’s 99% crap infomercials/ad ridden sites that all want to sell me [expletive] I don’t need.”
