They Don’t Make Things Like They Used To

On thinning quality, rising prices, and a system that can’t let relief show up

My mom needs a new toaster. Her old one didn’t wear out. She dropped it on the kitchen floor and it broke. It was the toaster her mom bought sometime in the 1960s.

She was visibly upset about having to replace it—and not just because of the sentimentality. She said something I’ve said myself, something I’ve heard countless times.

“They just don’t make things like they used to.”

I nodded and agreed. Then we went on with our day.

It was only later that another question occurred to me. Not whether this was true, but why it was.

Why don’t they make things like they used to?

Technology is an improvement in efficiency or outcome. Over time, we get better tools, better coordination, better systems. Things that once required enormous effort can now be done quickly, cheaply, and at scale.

The technology we have today is far more capable than what existed in the 1960s. That part isn’t controversial. Production is faster. Logistics are global. Information moves instantly.

And yet, despite all of this, the quality of many everyday goods has declined. Products fail just outside their warranty. New versions quietly remove features. Items that once lasted decades now feel temporary.

If technology keeps improving our ability to make things, where are those gains supposed to show up?

I don’t think toaster manufacturers are evil. I don’t imagine executives sitting around a conference table trying to figure out how to make worse products.

Whatever is happening here isn’t driven by malice. It’s driven by something else—something structural.

Let’s pretend you run a company that makes toasters.

This year, your costs go up 15%. That includes raw materials, energy, labor, shipping—everything it takes to get a toaster onto a shelf.

You try to raise your prices 15%. Customers stop buying. Your competitors didn’t raise prices that much.

So you raise prices 5%. That still doesn’t cover the increase.

Now you have a gap to close.

You have to close it somehow, or your company goes out of business.

You can’t raise prices much more.

You can’t pay workers less.

You can’t stop using metal.

So you make one change customers won’t notice right away.

You make the toaster last five years instead of ten.

You’re not an evil executive. You didn’t make this decision freely. If you don’t cut costs somewhere, your company doesn’t survive.

Now multiply this logic across millions of products, thousands of industries, and several decades.

Prices edge upward, but rarely enough to stop the purchase outright. Quality thins. Durability gets quietly redefined. Replacement becomes normal.

Nothing dramatic happens. Shelves stay full. Products keep shipping. From the outside, the system looks stable.

But the adjustments all run in the same direction. Things cost more. They last less. And the gap between what technology makes possible and what shows up in daily life quietly widens.

This is what inflation looks like when you stop thinking of it as a number and start noticing how people adapt.

When my mom goes to Walmart, she’ll probably see what looks like a normal situation. The shelves are full. There are several toasters to choose from. The boxes look familiar. Nothing appears to be missing.

But everything is thinner. The materials feel lighter. The toaster is designed for a shorter lifespan.

It still works. It still looks like a toaster. It just isn’t meant to be trusted for very long.

The problem isn’t this toaster, or even the next one. It’s a world where replacement quietly becomes the default expectation, and durability slowly stops being something you plan around.

“They just don’t make things like they used to.”

That’s mostly true.

On the micro level, the logic is easy enough to follow. A company doesn’t want to fail. Costs rise. Prices can only move so much. Something has to give.

What’s harder to understand is why this logic seems to apply everywhere, all at once.

Efficiency improves. Coordination improves. Tools improve. Relief doesn’t. And yet the benefits don’t arrive as relief. They arrive as thinner margins, shorter lifespans, and faster replacement.

I don’t know where this ends. But it’s hard not to wonder what happens in a world where every object is designed to be replaced, and nothing is built with the expectation of being kept.