@coolandnormal

No. It is not the same.

Companies back then had nowhere near the sophisticated propaganda and effective built-in obsolescence that they've since spent generations and untold billions finely tuning.

Many previously reliable brands have been bought out and deliberately enshittified, coasting on their previously established reputations while making increasingly worse shit.

Plastics crumble and break down in ways metal, glass, wood, and natural fibers never dreamed.

And a week's wages go less and less far every day.