The same reason why the childhood treats like Hostess Twinkies and cakes and candy bars don't taste good anymore. I originally blamed my tastebuds for the change, but now I believe it's the enshittification of base ingredients, squeezing as much nostalgic goodwill and basic cravings for sugar/fat as possible out of ever-lower quality, cheaper basic materials in the name of profit margins, donations to conservative super PACs, and executive yachts.

Again, we can blame Nixon and Reagan.

One of the things that corporations learned from the Oil Crisis is that the top executives could keep drawing a big salary even if the plants were off shore. Reagan enshrined the idea that as long as there was some guy in a suit pulling the strings, everything was fine and dandy.

It's because the hot idea in business right now is rental models for everything.

If your business plan doesn't have a way to lock customers in and force them to keep paying forever, then no investor is going to look at it.

Software is subscription, infrastructure is subscription. Hell, your own data is probably subscription based these days. Buy a car? Bet your ass it has at least 1 subscription service in it.

Enshittification is the end result of putting profits above everything. There's a reason why XJ Cherokees are still running today despite being over 40 years old. Their internals were so simple that even the most mechanically illiterate could work on it with basic tools from the hardware store. Something like that wouldn't be make it past the pitch meeting today.

have you guys seen this crazy movie called idiocracy

X. E. Cution lol

Apparently that book is from 1978. Exercise for the reader: find the similarities between 1978 and now...

Actually it's your own fault for buying Superproductname. You should have bought Supererproductname. You'd have known this is you'd put in two hours of research only to find out that Supererproductname was discontinued in 1919.

Because they are all businessmen. We have made a system where there are no more craftsmen. The car companies are more financial institutions that want their monthly fee, just like your doctor wants it, your washing machine manufacturer wants it.