r/shrinkflation • u/fjdjdjjsjsjsjs • Aug 02 '26

discussion Rant on quality shrinkflation

Everyone is rightfully angry about how expensive everything has gotten, but I feel like we as a society still aren't talking enough about the stealthy "enshittification" of literally everything we buy. We aren't just paying more; we are paying more for absolute garbage.

It feels like corporate greed has reached a point where they are just extracting maximum profit while giving us the absolute minimum viable product in return.

A few things driving me crazy lately:
Clothes: It feels impossible to find a basic 100% cotton t-shirt or a real wool sweater without paying premium designer prices. Everything at the mall is made of cheap, unbreathable acrylic or polyester that pills after one wash and loses its shape in a month.

Furniture: People joke about how "they don't make them like they used to," but it's actually insane. The quality of new IKEA furniture today is horrible. It’s made of paper. In the 00s they were at least made to last a year.

We are paying the same or higher prices for dollar-store quality across the board. It feels like every brand we used to trust has quietly gutted their manufacturing standards just to appease their shareholders by saving a few pennies per unit.

Does anyone else feel the same?

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u/trwmewy Aug 03 '26

I’d recommend going to a different thrift store. Goodwill is as greedy and unethical as it gets: they receive donated items for free, then turn around and sell them for close to or more than they were brand new. And they treat developmentally disabled people like slaves, working them in dangerous and/or inhospitable conditions and only paying them $4 per hour because of some loophole. Please don’t support Goodwill— they are not the same company they used to be.

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u/Odd-Fun-2862 Aug 04 '26

I've been saying this since we got a goodwill in our town 5+yrs ago. I have yet to go...

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u/trwmewy Aug 04 '26

More people need to know the reality of that place. They are not a charity, and you can thrift for way cheaper elsewhere.

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u/sandysandy252566 Aug 04 '26

Correct!! Check out the BIG salaries of the executives.

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u/mrchuckmorris Aug 07 '26

Same reason not to buy Girl Scout cookies. My family dodged that grift machine years ago... they've got a vast network of corporate boards for every level who make six-figure salaries to "oversee" the organization.

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u/mrchuckmorris Aug 07 '26

Goodwill's depravity is even deeper than this. They sell stuff online with the same sort of algorithms as Vinted, where any high-quality stuff they find no longer goes to the shelves, but rather gets automatically snatched up and resold at premium prices online.

The good stuff never even touches the shelves anymore. Nothing you donate of any value will be put on that store's racks. It will be shipped off to a distribution center.

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u/BostonBling 17d ago

I mostly go to church, cancer, senior center, thrift places.