alt Hacker NewsIt’s true there’s a spin in that direction. But I think there’s also a tendency to take things for granted in the other direction because they have become so cheap. Food and clothing used to make up significant line items for ordinary people. I remember in the 1990s seeing ads for discount cereal (“it comes in a bag on the bottom shelf but it’s just as good as the branded stuff!”). When was the last time you saw a commercial like that?
A lot of the durable goods that became very cheap were a huge quality of life improvement that we simply take for granted. In 1970, which was when boomers were about the same age as Gen Z is today, only a third of americans had air conditioning. Today it’s almost 90%—basically only the people in very temperate climates don’t have it.
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> A lot of the durable goods that became very cheap were a huge quality of life improvement that we simply take for granted.
Like the previous poster mentioned, I'm not sure that's really such a quality of life improvement.
First of all, food. I don't know where you shop, but the cost has definitely doubled, even tripled.
Second of all, the idea that it's some "good" that these things are "cheap" relative to wages - before they may have been expensive, but they were also investments. It doesn't really matter that much, because you can save to obtain them, and don't need to worry about re-obtaining them. Being in a situation where durable goods are cheap, but cost of living is high, means that you are disproportionately struggling - you can't save anything, any good that these products provide is outweighed by it being too expensive to live...
The food also became qualitatively different over the same period. We're not eating the same meat, bread, fruits, cheese etc. that our grandparents did at our age.
Durable goods became much less durable, too. Furniture is the biggest one I'd say - they're just not built to last anymore. Whether it's planned obsolescence or just extreme cost cutting, we aren't comparing apples to apples here.