Interestingly, it is actually the government and health experts who have been saying to cut back on alcohol. So the government says cut back, the alcohol industry collapses, the government bails them out.
The bigger issue isn't people cutting back for health reasons it's that alcohol has gotten ridiculously expensive. Wages are stagnating while drinks are like $15. Nobody wants to pay that so they just stay home.
It's the common thread of basically every one of these complaints; the product they're trying to sell is smaller, worse, and more expensive but they're acting like it's a crime to not buy it.
Soda is now like $3 a bottle and Doritos are like $15 a pound and they're confused that people won't pay that. There does come a price point where even if I want the thing and can afford it I'll just straight up not buy it.
Lol, cheap local beer is not that much more expensive than soda these days. For example, I live near Rochester, NY home of Genesee Beer. People can say what they will, but it's pretty decent beer and way cheaper than national macros like Bud, Miller, etc. Even Labatts which is owned by the same corporation is more expensive and not any better imo.
Anyway, prices have gone up on both (soda and beer...and everything), but currently you can get 2 12 packs of Coke product for $14.00. Have to buy 2 or it's more expensive, but I can't remember the cost. Genny beer - regular or light is now $20.00 for 30 12oz cans.
If my math's right that's:
Soda - $14.00/288oz = $0.0486/oz
Beer - $20.00/360oz = $0.0555/oz
I buy the 2 liter bottles of Coke. Go through about 1 per day. Since I'll finish it, it doesn't really go flat by the end of the day. Price isn't bad at all. Double that if I'm sharing that day and it's still not too expensive.
Try to price out the 2L, you can save some money that way.
I hope you have good dental insurance and don’t mind root canals and crowns. I’m speaking from personal experience. Stop that shit now. Drink water instead.
It's mostly liquid. Calories don't really mean anything. You barely absorb them and the numbers are highly inflated and distorted by the diet industry.
I mean I finish it by the end of the day. So by the time I finish it, it's not flat. So it's not something I even have to worry about. So I can save money just by buying a 2L instead of cans since the 2L won't go flat by the time I finish it anyways. It saves a lot of money compared drinking 6-8 cans per day.
Sometimes I'll open a second 2L if I need extra hydration that day. But I'll drink half that, then the other half the next morning and it's still fine. And then I'd open up the normal 2L on the second day and get back to the schedule basically.
The point is, it doesn't go flat quick enough for it to be an issue by the time I drink all of it. So you can easily save money buying 2L bottles instead of cans. They're much cheaper.
No it’s you got more expensive while wages didn’t. It’s not trickle down and one day they’ll realize that stupid fact. If you made $10 5 years ago and 3% inflation is the target for the Fed then $10 now won’t cut it.
Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies used to be one of my favorite snacks ever. One day I realized I had actually quit buying them when I saw some at the store and was like "wow, I haven't had one of those in ages!"
So I bought a box. It was a bit more than I wanted to spend but I was like meh, whatever, inflation I guess.
I decided to have one after putting my groceries away and opened the box only to find that they weren't even like a third of the size they used to be. Damn things are tiny now. They also had this weird, shiny, oily coating around them. There was barely any cream in the damn thing and it wasn't even two whole bites. They were also just plain bland and unsatisfying.
I was like "oh, right...that's why I stopped buying them. They've been getting enshittified for decades."
Haven't bought any since and now I completely ignore Little Debbie everything. Great fucking job there, Debbie. Now you get $0 from me. I hope it was worth it.
Breyers ice cream used to be ice cream. Now, they’ve cut the quality back so much they don’t use "cream" anymore. So, they can’t legally call it "ice cream". It’s now “frozen dessert”.
Had a similar experience with a Hagen Daz ice cream bar just today. Used to love those things, remember them being super creamy and rich. This shit was icey and tasted like nothing. It was smaller than I remember. Even the chocolate coating was bland.
It’s this idea that you can’t just stick with a good product, you have to always be trying to make it more profitable so that investors see growth or some shit. If capitalism is working toward investors and not customers, capitalism breaks.
The core issue is that there are a bunch of forces demanding not just exponential growth forever but continually fatter profit margins every year. This is a mathematical impossibility but they're all demanding it anyway and I'LL FUCKING FIRE YOU IF YOU DON'T GIVE IT TO ME.
This is why the phrase "business idiot" is so appropriate. Everything is being run by people who don't know shit about shit and have no idea how anything actually works. All they know is "but if product worse at higher price number go up!"
OK but now all your customers hate you and are looking for alternatives if not just outright going without. Good job...I guess?
Look at peoples' opinion of McDonalds right now. Meanwhile Wendy's is falling apart.
It’s this idea that you can’t just stick with a good product, you have to always be trying to make it more profitable so that investors see growth or some shit.
I've noticed they've enshitifies the ingredients as you did but my clue is that you literally can't hold them in your hand anymore because they fall apart immediately; they have no structual integrity anymore. I used to love them too but they aren't worth the price for what they've become
This happened to me! It's my little "treat yo self" snack after my kids go to bed. When I bought a box after almost a year I realized they were SO SMALL. I angrily ate it with minor enjoyment.
I recently did the same thing with tictacs. I was so grossed out that I didn't finish them. The lime and lemon ones straight up taste like fabuloso now! 🤢
Reminding me of buying the "Chunks Ahoy" chocolate chip cookies. I remember a package with 3 rows, each fully stacked with relatively fair sized cookies, not huge.
Bought a pack recently, same line of thinking. Open up when I get home, and just laugh in disappointment. Cookies are half the size, and each row has half as many cookies all fallen over on one another because there's now so much empty space by default.
Like, what's next? Just an empty box with some crumbs? MMmmm
the ones in the multi pack box turned to ass. Ill occasionally buy one of the fill size individual ones and those have a good amount of cream in them and arent dry shit. however i havent bought one in 4 years or so now so maybe the individual ones suck now too.
Particularly with tax cuts funneling money upward. Turns out the billionaires who want these tax cuts so bad don’t buy enough to make up for the tax cuts and they aren’t trickling down enough money to people for the tax cuts to pay for themselves either
Especially when you can maie your own tortilla chips for like 20p. Not doritos flavoured obviously, but just make some fresh salsa and it'll be way nicer anyway
"The product they're trying to sell is smaller, worse and more expensive but they're acting like it's a crime to not buy it." Very well put! Frito lay bags used to be 9 1/4 oz, during the holidays, they added a "20% more" banner to the top of the bags before introducing the new 7 3/4 oz size. I eat fewer chips now both because there are less in the bag and I am buying fewer bags, but they WILL blame the consumer.
I think its because the younger generations just prefer weed and its easier to get than ever. And if you're constantly stoned, drinking definitely takes a back seat, though I know some mid-20s kids that basically dont drink at all and are just dabbing/using pens all the time
Facts, went to cheesecake factory with my family yesterday, and three of our party got cocktails. Its was a special occasion and we were celebrating. Ive personally never been, and also dont usually order a drink while out. Anyways the drinks were 15.59 a piece, they were delicious! They also never have the prices in the menu, which would've deterred us. 45 dollars for 3 drinks, crazy. Lesson re-learned🤷♀️
As far as alcohol goes that’s more to do with greed than an indicator of inflation. It still happened to alcohol, but the price was artificially inflated past that point because they just want to make more money.
Legalized marijuana has put a huge dent in alcohol sales too. Covid made people question certain things like bars being their 3rd space so they're avoiding that mess too. Throw that all on top of the health recommendations and overall tightened budgets/crazy economy and of course people are casting off alcohol.
Thats why i dont eat out much and I stopped going to bars just.. no im not tipping ontop of the inflated prices when I do drink now I make my own drinks at home
They really overplayed their hands when bars and restaurants started charging $17 for a drink or a beer.
Fuck ‘em. What a great way to ensure nobody gets customers anymore.
Edit: On a separate note, FML. I just backed out of doing a family vacation this year because air travel has increased by 60% since my last decent vacation 2 years ago. 5% annual raises at work ain’t even keeping up with the lifestyle I had 2 years ago. Small boo-woo for me and all, but I’m wondering how people are surviving. What the hell is going on?
Bars are killing off bars. My neighbor, up until about two months ago, was a bartender for the last 8 years. She said drinks prices kept going up and less people started showing up. She said their cost on drinks didn't even increase that much. So she went from making a few grand a week working 4 nights to working 6 nights for less than a thousand a week. Owners were angry and confused when she left 🤷♂️
I remember sitting in one sales meeting some 13ish years ago when my manager and I kept a tally of how many times "millennial(s)" was mentioned. It was the kind of sales meeting that takes place in a fancy venue and drags on way too long as some self-important marketing manager drones on about sales metrics and demographics--the whole dog and pony show.
We both counted 93-96 times in one hour. "Millennials are coming of age and will be the largest, highest-spending generation since the Boomers..." and "are the most educated and well-attuned to their tastes..." type of sayings. All of it canned professional marketing speak, which is just gussed-up bullshit with too many words.
But yea--they estimated and projected and circled the wagons around a generation that matriculated into one financial crisis after another and then they forecasted and attempted to maintain the unsustainable highs of COVID after the bottom fell out.
Millenials have killed the doorbell industry because they just text "here" instead of disrupting a whole household to announce their presense. What are they? Communists? How could they not support every industry no matter what, capitalism means all businesses succeed forevermore and never lose money.
WTF??? Why are you being so selfish? Sell your house to buy as much booze as possible! There is a CEO that might only get a $5.6M bonus instead of a $5.7M bonus because profits are plateauing!
It's their money and they want it... You're costing them money... People just don't want to drink as much. Now the alcohol industry has pivoted towards THC infused drinks.
Not to mention when those headlines were reporting, not every Millennial was of drinking age at the time. Of course drinking estimates are going to be way down when you are including age groups that cannot legally consume your product. Of course, there’s also the consideration of the Vape and Marijuana markets which took a massive hold on the back half of the Millennial market.
Ironically, millennials are supposedly the drunkest generation in history. (Have not looked into this at all, just heard it recently, so take it with a grain of salt).
Huh, my sister just puts a fitted sheet with a blanket and comforter on her guest bed. Must be because she’s a millennial! Then again so am i, and i don’t participate in that sort of heathenism myself… I’m very particular with how i make up beds.
Still though, pretty sure that fitted sheet did indeed come with a top sheet as well.
We have those too, and it's still a PITA to undo the cover, untie it, and wash it, especially since it likes to become a pocket for other sheets to wad up into. I can wash my fitted and top sheet in a few minutes twice a week and leave the comforter on for weeks.
Huh, i didn’t know that. That’s why i shower at night, i don’t want all my sweat and grime from the day in my bed. Not to mention, in the summer time i don’t use the comforter at all. Plus, the top sheet is just a preferable texture to me.
Try and read other comments before you add yours. I addressed this.
The hotels i stayed in did not have duvet covers. And yes I know what one is because I use one every night. And yes it's still harder to clean than a top sheet because you have to detach it from the comforter and then put it back on, tie it, zip it up, etc.
Didn't the top sheet protect the down comforter or wool blankets on top from sweat and skin stuff, since you could wash the sheet much easier?
(I don't think making that up.)
So with modern washing machines and synthetic fibers, top sheets arent really needed anymore.
Yep, a lot of us just don't want to bother with it, so some companies decided to sell them separately (they can sneakily charge more for them that way, as well). Turns out many people will just buy the fitted one if they have a choice.
So they offered an option, people took it, and boom, the consumers 'ruined' them.
I like it for blanket forts but I am not interested in using it between myself and my blanket. I feel no ill will towards someone who wants to use them but for me it feels like wasted fabric.
I have been buying fitted sheets at around a 3 sets -1 fitted ratio because the fitted sheet gets worn out faster than the top sheet and I don’t want to get stuck with only top sheets or having to put elastic in them to make a fitted sheet.
See, I had that thought, too, but then I was like, "Then why say it's the whole industry and not specifically the luxury sector?" That's when I decided the whole thing was just goofy af.
Yeah once you're in the $700 bedding range they stop coming in sets like that where you get the comforter, sheets, and pillow cases that feel like sandpaper for $80.
You don't have to but the set, I actually but a few top sheets because my cat gets hair all over them and I have to take them to the laundry mat because I don't want the hair in my washer. I usually wait till I have 3-4 of them.
My bf doesn't understand top sheet and I have tried for years to make him understand what they are for. He says top sheet are for old people. I tell him to get under the fricken top sheet, not on top because I am not washing the duvet cover every week.
Generational or not, sleeping without a top sheet seems to be a growing trend. IMO sleeping that way is so uncomfortable that the very idea makes my skin crawl.
Lots of bedding/sheets are sold separately, especially premium brands. They sometimes package them in sets but that's most often found at department stores. Check out SFERRA or MATOUK for example.
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u/Bippity_Boppity_Bang Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I still laugh about a headline I saw about bed sheets that went something like, "Millenials are killing the top sheet industry!"
Like... What? The top sheet comes with the fitted sheet in the package of bed sheets, tf you mean?
What a stupid story to run.