alt Hacker NewsMost of the goods and services in the past were total crap, unless you were wealthy enough to afford the really good stuff. People have distorted memories of what things used to be like. Or they're fooled by survivorship bias: only the best old stuff is still around while everything else is in a landfill.
Au contraire, when my mother was growing up most ingredients were organic and free range by default and all your meals were hand made and free of synthetic additives.
There are charts which show the cratering of nutritional content of fresh produce over time so maybe not all goods and services of the past were total crap.