Few people love unmet expectations, and that goes for pretty much everything, from people and companies to items and services, among other things. That’s why it’s no surprise that when something does not live up to a certain standard, they can get quite upset.
As a matter of fact, roughly four-in-five customers have had an upsetting or a disappointing experience with a brand, which typically leads to some unfortunate consequences, be it blacklisting the brand—which 44% of unhappy people reportedly do—or sharing their negative feedback with those around them—the means nearly 90% of them take.
The latter was seen to be true with members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community who were invited to share their opinions about the quality of certain brands. User ‘bapboopbeep’ asked them which ones were actively watering down their quality, and netizens didn’t hold back their opinions. Scroll down to find their answers on the list below, and see what brands were no longer living up to the expectations in the eyes of these redditors.
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Netflix, Hulu, Prime video - pretty much all the streaming services. S**ttier content, introduction of ads, constant price increases for zero added value
Streaming is becoming exactly like cable tv was. And podcasts are becoming exactly what network radio was. The exact thing that was appealing about them was that they were different from the corporate bollocks. Now it’s all the same. Monoculture is destroying quality of life in every dimension
Etsy used to have so many good products made by creative and talented people. But more and more I’m seeing s**tty T-shirt prints and stuff from Amazon.
Yes. As a former Etsy vendor I want to comment on this. I make and design unique jewelry. When I first started a shop site on Etsy around 2008, the people selling items on the platform were all individual artists and craftspeople. I know Etsy is even older than this, but that's as far back as my own experience goes. At that time they had a very strict policy that the person selling an item had to be the person who hand crafted the item (except for 2 categories of goods: craft supplies and vintage/antiques). They had methods of investigating cases where people seemed to be not in compliance with this policy, like requiring you to send multiple photos of your studio and of your creation process, etc. This began to change dramatically after about 2015. I think there were just too many vendors to monitor. Plus they started a very bad cycle of raising vendor fees accompanied by loosening of the rules of who could sell items on Etsy.
Prime just announced they are adding advertising to their movies. Bastards.
Ah,but for just an extra £2.99 per month, you can go ad-free...for now!
Google - the search engine is now the same as Alta Vista where you have to scroll past all the sponsored content you are not interested in and you tube is now showing 3 ads to watch a 20 second clip
Google is trash now. It’s mostly just a paid filtering service and it’s very difficult to get good search results from it anymore.
Lately it feels more like which brand ISNT watering down their quality and quantity tbh.
Disney. I hate to say it, but more recent movies just don’t have the same charm as they used to
Recently I was watching some older Disney movies and yes, current Disney can't compete with its older stuff. And since I hadn't seen the movie before (Tarzan) there were no nostalgia goggles at play here.
Appliance companies. My folks have a 35 year old hotpoint refrigerator that is still running strong. Meanwhile a chip on the motherboard in my 3 year old GE refrigerator fried itself and now it won’t dispense water or ice. My Samsung dishwasher shit the bed after two years, and same with my Rheem water heater. Their quality is going down the drain but “OmG mY fRiDgE hAs WiFi :)”
I can’t offer an example of a brand that isn’t guilty of this. Cheap, poor quality, replaceable products and goods is literally the fuel of our global economy. No company makes their products to last a lifetime or even a decade that I can think of… everything from buildings, homes, cars, complete infrastructure to the little things like shoes, phones, T-shirts, lipstick… it is no longer a goal for products to last… quite the opposite- the shorter the lifespan, the more the consumer will replace, repurchase and reinvest.
We are living in an era where the norm is to purposely withhold and prevent longevity. We have consciously become a society where progress is discouraged. We allow/accept lack of innovation and improvement because of the money flow that is generated from dependency on outdated and poor technologies by today’s standards.
Dr Martens boots. Most of them are made in China now and even the Made in England Docs are made with inferior cheap leather and don’t even have a shank.
They are nothing more than fad fashion now.
I should have kept my docs from the 90's. I swear, fashion trends start over every 25 years.
Most toilet paper brands are shorter now, I noticed honey maid and nabisco graham crackers now only have 7 crackers per pack..
BUT most of all GOOGLE search all of a sudden sucks bad for some reason. Just last night I googled “what channel is Sundance on Charter Spectrum” and I almost couldn’t even find it. I had to click on like 6 different pages and reword my search multiple times before I finally found it. That’s just the most recent example I can think of but it’s gotten so bad I don’t know what else to use honestly.
Don’t even get me started on YOUTUBE. Good lord the ads drive me insane. Sometimes there’s up to 3 or 4 ad breaks on a 10min video. They’re skippable for the most part, but the way they’re going, they won’t be skippable this time next year. Or there will be 6 ad breaks instead of 3 or 4. It’s gotten to the point that I cant watch YouTube at night to fall asleep anymore on my tv because unless I actively hit skip every 3 minutes, I get stuck listening to a 2 minute ad about something fucking stupid like click bait $200 bearskin hoodie or Chinese pos flashlight that I promise you I will never buy.
It’s not just YouTube though. It’s Hulu, DIRECTV, Dish, cable, Netflix. It’s everyone and I hate it. Like I’m not going to buy anything you force me to watch I promise you. I pinky promise. Like 0% chance, all the ads do is interrupt the feeling of enjoyment im getting from your service and replace it with annoyance. God I hate ads. There has to be a better way.
Our generation left cable and satellite for streaming services and YouTube to get away from the having to deal with ads.
Hasbro,
They’ve just fired 1500 staff a few weeks before Christmas. While their ceo Chris Cocks earned a 9.5 million bonus. Disgusting.
Their games are terrible quality, they have entered last stage capitalism and are grinding every penny out of their reputation
Subway.
Used to make halfway decent sandwiches that were a pretty good deal. Now? Paper thin meat slices, fillers in the meat, browning gross veggies, three day old stale bread…for $12
Hard pass.
McDonald’s.
Granted, they were never great (at least as long as I’ve been eating them). But over the past few years, I’ve definitely noticed a downward trend. Virtually anything you get from their menu is going to taste almost exactly the same. The only minor exception is the Quarter Pounder, but I don’t feel like spending that much on a fast food burger often. Which brings me to my biggest complaint: most of their sandwiches have shrunk to about 2/3 of the original size, but the prices have somehow doubled or tripled.
Yankee Candle. Well, a lot of candles, but it sucks when such a big candle brand known for having amazing candles has fallen off so tremendously. Went into a Yankee Candle store and picked up my favorite candle, Red Apple Wreath, and could barely smell it with my nose held just aboce the wax. Genuinely got scared I had covid. Went home and opened the one I have that's several years old and the scent filled the whole room without even having to light it. The quality really has gone downhill.
Yankee Candle quality dropped dramatically years ago when the original owner sold the company. They immediately cut back on the scented oil they use and raised the prices. I think they also started to focus more on accessories than the actual candle. I've heard that the son of the original Yankee CEO started Kringle Candle and that they are better quality.
Cable tv stations - TBS, TNT, AMC, Sundance, Comedy Central, etc. All running the same shows for hours on end, repeating day after day, running cheap reality TV, with little variety and far less original content than their earlier days. And the commercial loading ... off the charts. Utter garbage for maximum price.
Panera.
Just what the world needs. A thimble full of soup for $12.
If you’re Canadian, you’ll know: Tim Hortons. What was once a beloved coffee shop brand that offered decent food and coffee has now become a pale imitation of itself. Burger King purchased it, like, (edit) 10 or so years ago, so it’s obvious why. A friend recently said that the owner is notorious for getting food down to the bare minimum of what people will accept and finding the profits there.
As a German I can say all German cars. Same as most German tools etc. American cars are the same bad quality but the old times of engineers building a part so it lasts the longest are long over. Any car which has an oil pump break before 200 000 km should be a warranty case. Same as any other part.
The only breaking parts should be the engine after 250 000+ km for petrol and 500 000km+ for Diesel. Anything breaking before that is an absolute joke and should be covered by warranty.
It is also a joke that Chinese car sellers give you a higher warranty on their cars than German ones... That says it all.
Ps: I drive a Mercedes, but I'm just disappointed about the service. My grandfather only drove Mercedes and the service was beyond great and the cars were better.
I have a Mercedes. It has just turned 3 years old. 7 days before the warranty expired, the engine management light came on. It needed a new cylinder head. Over 25 hours of labour needed, thankfully still under warranty. Mercedes know there is an issue with the part but refuse to honour the repairs for those unfortunate souls who are out of warranty, leaving them with a huge bill.
Dollar Tree :( They used to sell everything for just $1.00. Then they raised everything to $1.25, I think just earlier this year or sometime in 2022. Now they're adding in products for $3 and $5.
It used to be I could go to Dollar Tree and feel like I could afford anything. Now I'm annoyed by the changes and don't want to buy much of anything, only the specific items that I usually get there.
They're just becoming Dollar General and it's gross and sad. :(
Not a certain brand but I think a lot of restaurant have gone down hill. The food just tastes average and rushed, but at the same time the prices are more than ever.
This mostly applies to chain restaurants. There is still plenty of Mom and Pop places offering great food for affordable prices.
Breyer’s ice cream was a premium brand when I was younger. A bunch of years ago they changed and are now the crappy brand.
Didn’t see this one, so I’ll throw it out there: Google products.
Putting aside the more fundamental concerns about data privacy or ethics and all that. Just focused on quality for this.
Search - it’s a mess. If I want an answer, I need to add Reddit to my search. There are no more finding relevant info from unique sites. Every result is branded seo stuff to filter you to some big entity in the space. It just isn’t good at what it’s supposed to do. The chat AIs are only a threat to Google because search is so clearly just a money maker now, and not useful at all.
YouTube - it’s a mess. Its search functions are almost worse than search, shorts are so annoying, ads get longer and longer. The way they compensate content creators kills the content. Easy example: I followed a channel of a guy who did these long video series, where he’d play a game and wax philosophical. It made them very popular and beloved in his niche. Now he only makes 5-10 minute quick videos released rapidly. He was asked why, and he said that the algorithms reward shorter content, posting more often. Longer videos just don’t get promoted (probably because the ad ratios get lower).
The google suite tools still work well (likely because those are sold to businesses so maintaining quality is more important). But their flagships, YouTube and search, are just no good. Too big to be replaced though, so it’s gonna be a long spiral downward for them.
"search is so clearly just a money maker now" - absolutely! It's a huge difference from even a few years ago
Amazon. I’ve returned probably half of things I’ve ordered recently and I’ve been getting a lot of knock offs.Amazon. I’ve returned probably half of things I’ve ordered recently and I’ve been getting a lot of knock offs.
Amazon is NOT a manufacturer. If you order cheap, Chinese Temu c**p, you get cheap, Chinese Temu c**p. My problem with Amazon is they're doing a LOT of bait-and-switch buy selling prioritized searches which put poor matches on top.
Anything candy with chocolate.
Especially in the US, where candy companies have replaced sugar with corn syrup - giving it that sicky-sweet taste. Hershey even tried to get the FDA to redefine chocolate guidelines to make it easier to cut quality and costs. I haven't had a Hershey bar since.
Kahlua is literally watering down their product, ABV went from 25% to 22% to 18%
Pop-Tart
Wtf happened to their frosting placement
Honestly though, I was just reflecting on why pop tart pastry has always been so flavorless and crumbly. Like why have they never improved on their dough?
Dorito's. Their sweet chili flavor is starting to become very bland.
Pringles has already reached the point where whichever flavor you buy, it's original.
Not to mention pringles shrank their chips to about half their size, but they’ve doubled in price!
Little Debbie Snack Cakes. They taste like sugar and wax.
My brother swears Little Debbie is helping other companies by buying their waste and incorporating it into their products. Little Debbie does have celluous , which is carbohydrate that comprises the woody parts and cell walls of plants. It is a type of dietary fiber found naturally in fruits, vegetables, and cereals. The cellulose added to processed foods usually comes from wood pulp (saw dust) or cotton lint.
Anything that Kohl's sells. I bought a pair of jeans there just 2 months ago and there's already crotch holes somehow...2. Goddamn. Months.
It's every clothing brand, thanks to the rise of "fast fashion" I've been in romania for...almost 13 years, my wife was born here. A few years ago my wife decided she wanted to learn how to sew, so she got a job at a clothing factory (basically a sweat shop) They made everything, Armani, Marc Jacobs, Fenti, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger....and H&M, forever 21....employees were paid a bit less than $3 an hour, everyone had their specific job al la assembly line, and the same, exact materials were used for the $20 H&M shirt, as for the $800 Fenti dress. My wife did the math one day, when they were making an order of $1800 jackets, including materials AND labor, each jacket cost about 60 cents to manufacture.
Craftsman tools. The drills used to be competitive, now everything has to be Milwaukee, which is triple the price.
Craftman tools have gone the way of Sears' other brands, like Kenmore. Complete cr*p and a waste of money.
Lands End and L.L. Bean. They used to have great gear—coats were solid quality and great for cold winters. I bought a Lands End coat—their “warmest” rating—and I’d be shocked if it kept me warm during break-up. Cheap fabric and awful quality. L.L. Bean was just as bad. Returned both. Eddie Bauer is still solid.
I have noticed their quality is much worse, a pair of slippers I bought there were worn through the heel after a few months.
Old Navy. Anything clothing.
Gap, so inevitable I guess. In the late 80s and 90s, you could always get good quality cotton basics but they're long gone, for women, anyway.
Bath and Body Works used to have Vitamin E in their body wash. Expensive—buy on clearance—but effective for dry skin.
Now they switched to B5 instead and it doesn’t really work. Trying to buy the older formula ones off of eBay now
I did not realize they had made that switch. It's been a while since I stocked up. I'll have to see what my bottles list.
Lululemon, my aligns from 5 years ago are only just pilling a bit, my aligns from 3 months ago started pilling before I even washed them, they also have some loose threads.
Chef Boyardee ravioli used to have rich sauce. Ever since the pandemic it's watery, and plain tasting.
Surprised no one has said this yet but Fanatics, the sports gear store. They are TRASH now.
Back when they first started several years ago it used to be a good store with good service that was basically another place to buy your fan gear from. Now, they have exclusive licensing for merchandise for all the major sports leagues and as a result the “Fanatics Branded” merchandise they make (so like your standard team shirt or hat for example) is trash quality and they charge out the nose for it. Shipping is expensive and takes weeks for it to come and the customer service is basically nonexistent. Oh and they charge $9.99 for shipping if you return something but they’ll “waive the return shipping charge” if you take your refund in the form of a store credit so they’re literally holding your money hostage.
I once ordered a shirt from them that was clearly defective when it showed up (the logo was crooked). As much as I never want to be rude to customer service people, I basically had to throw a temper tantrum to get them to waive the return shipping charge when they initially said no, even though the item was defective (they ultimately did “just this one time as a courtesy”…..literally their words).
Look at @FanaticsSucks on Twitter for so many examples of why they’re so bad.
As someone that worked for Macys for over a year...Macys
Macy's are the Borg. Cry for the lost. Filene's, Jordan Marsh, Burdine's....
Whole Foods! Shopped there for Christmas dinner and 2 ingredients were rancid when we opened them. Their stock is also abysmal - could hardly find the basics we needed.
I used to work for a brand and we weren't as much as watering down, ask much as we were replacing water with sugar. So much sugar. I suspect that this is true for other brands too.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch whisky is their “top of the line” blend, but most agree that it’s way overpriced for what it is. It isn’t even a blended malt, like the cheaper and superior Green Label - it contains generic grain alcohol mixed with malt whiskies.
Target. Target used to be the best for decorations for different holidays. Now the pickings are slim and sad. There's more stuff if you shop their online store but it's not great. I don't need a Halloween tree, I need costumes.
Nabisco. Their products feel and taste like cardboard now, not to mention that they’re 2x smaller than they used to be.
The "Native" brand products you can usually find at target. The body lotion is like straight water and several other people have said that too.
Digiorno pizza went through shrinkflation. I used to buy their crispy pan pepperoni pizza and now I can’t find it in stores. What replaced it is Detroit style pizza that’s about 25% smaller.
Everything in this post is because millionaires want to become billionaires. The people at the top of the capitalist manure heap just keep on sucking the value out of everything for greed. But for some reason, a huge percentage of people think those billionaires do not need to pay taxes.
The Seattle Mariners baseball team. Indisputable.
Boston Red Sox, too. 2023 was the first year we didn't even watch a Sox game on television. We used to save up to go to Fenway every year. Don't get me wrong, I am still a fan. But my Care-O-Meter is as low as ownership's interest in the team.
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Please add Bored Panda to this list. I am about to leave due to the new intrusive and noisy ads.
This site has been going downhill every since 2021. Once they started with the horrible censorship and negative AITA posts, I knew that something was wrong. They have staff that have degrees in photography, linguistics, literature, and art yet all they do is copy-and-paste c**p from Reddit. It is truly mind-boggling and honestly kind of sad. This used to be a quirky website that celebrated artwork from around the web and posted light-hearted articles. Now, they've become so extremely negative. They have NO moderator on this site and don't even listen to their readers.
Load More Replies...
As we scroll through the article and now get the added enjoyment of an add thanks bored panda
BP is definitely watering down and it makes me a sad panda.
Load More Replies...
Bored Panda with its excessive number of animated ads for stupid s**t I don't need.
Please add Bored Panda to this list. I am about to leave due to the new intrusive and noisy ads.
This site has been going downhill every since 2021. Once they started with the horrible censorship and negative AITA posts, I knew that something was wrong. They have staff that have degrees in photography, linguistics, literature, and art yet all they do is copy-and-paste c**p from Reddit. It is truly mind-boggling and honestly kind of sad. This used to be a quirky website that celebrated artwork from around the web and posted light-hearted articles. Now, they've become so extremely negative. They have NO moderator on this site and don't even listen to their readers.
Load More Replies... As we scroll through the article and now get the added enjoyment of an add thanks bored panda
BP is definitely watering down and it makes me a sad panda.
Load More Replies... Bored Panda with its excessive number of animated ads for stupid s**t I don't need.
