Industrialization and automation brought down the cost of goods, making them much more accessible to more people.
But they absolutely simultaneously resulted in lower quality goods in many areas.
As an example, people used to buy hand crafted furniture after buying an home, and it lasted them a lifetime because it was made with such high quality material and with such craftsmanship. It was also very expensive, which motivated keeping it for so long and passing it on to future generations.
Today the furniture we buy is much less expensive as a percentage of income but the quality is crap and you may end up needing to replace it once the finish has worn off because refinishing would be as expensive as buying another crap quality piece of furniture.
The same goes for clothing and many other goods.
It’s not that nobody makes any high quality goods anymore, but they are several times the price and are very low volume because of the cheap crappy alternatives.
But they absolutely simultaneously resulted in lower quality goods in many areas.
As an example, people used to buy hand crafted furniture after buying an home, and it lasted them a lifetime because it was made with such high quality material and with such craftsmanship. It was also very expensive, which motivated keeping it for so long and passing it on to future generations.
Today the furniture we buy is much less expensive as a percentage of income but the quality is crap and you may end up needing to replace it once the finish has worn off because refinishing would be as expensive as buying another crap quality piece of furniture.
The same goes for clothing and many other goods.
It’s not that nobody makes any high quality goods anymore, but they are several times the price and are very low volume because of the cheap crappy alternatives.