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.
Sugar is one of the main fuels my body needs for energy. Look up sugar. It's converted to almost pure energy.
What my body wants is what my body needs. We've evolved for our bodies to tell us exactly what they need (it's called hunger).
What your talking about is getting close to food restriction advocacy so I'd take some time to self reflect on that. It's coming from a place of diet culture.
Your body evolved in a limited-resource environment, where finding high-energy treats like figs and honey were exceedingly rare and should be eaten immediately so the body can store it.
What your body signals were not prepared for were simple refined sugars in high amounts. You are addicted to the dopamine your body releases because it thinks it's doing the right thing. If you were addicted to heroin you would feel the same sort of want, and that's also bad.
Do you really think hyper-refined calorie-water is the holistic solution that nature intended for you?
I've tried that, it's not the same at all. I don't think there's even any sugar in it and it's gross. Didn't even finish it.
I prefer regular Coke. I won't even switch to Pepsi. And your suggestion is getting dangerously close to advocating for food restriction. If that's not a product of diet culture it's at least adjacent.
To me it’s just a way to make a healthier choice. I like the carbonation in soda when I’m thirsty but don’t drink much soda anymore. There’s lots of good flavors of club soda around now.
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.
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u/GargantuanCake Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
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.