It’s as if the smell of burnt plastic from a dollar store has permeated the world. Things are worse: chipboard furniture, T-shirts unrecognizable after a second wash, packaged foods with more preservatives than ingredients. Airplane seats turned into backrests. Automatic restroom lights that turn off at a whim. But also newspaper articles shamelessly written with ChatGPT and its algorithmic prose. Nothing is made to be loved. Only to be bought.
In a study titled The Concept and Measurement of Product Quality (1976), researcher E. Scott Maynes observed that quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer. Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia. For some consumers — although we know there won’t be many — the Nokia’s extreme durability may be more valuable than the iPhone’s technological innovations. Things aren’t worse, they just seem worse to us. But why?
“There is a pessimism that permeates a large part of the population, making everything seem inferior to us,” explains Javier Carbonell, deputy director of Future Policy Lab, a think tank focused on designing public policies to combat economic inequalities, over the phone. “This climate affects the judgments we make about the policies implemented and also the products and goods we consume.” According to the expert, the main factor driving this criticism is that the great promise of capitalism — if you work, you can have a decent life, buy a house, and go on vacation — is no longer being fulfilled; the social elevator has broken down. “Added to this is the impact of social media, which shows lives unattainable for most people,” he adds.
According to Carbonell, coordinator of the book La desigualdad en España (Inequality in Spain) (2024), the “culture of austerity” that emerged after the Great Recession (2008–2014) has been replaced by a “culture of efficiency,” embodied by Elon Musk, who champions a model aimed at minimizing costs. He first applied it at X (formerly Twitter) — where he laid off more than 75% of the workforce — and later, in the U.S. government.
He’s not alone: Mark Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the “Year of Efficiency” and carried out massive layoffs at Meta. Amazon, like many other companies, has been gradually replacing human workers with robots and automated systems — to the point that in some of its warehouses, there’s no need to even turn on the lights.
When it comes to public services, the situation is different. Neither the pessimistic climate nor the supposed culture of efficiency alone explain why, between 2017 and 2022, the number of people with private insurance grew by 4% per year. According to the report The Healthcare System: Current Situation and Future Prospects, published in 2024, the main reason why Spaniards are turning away from the public healthcare system is the endless waiting lists.
Carbonell argues that, in absolute terms, healthcare services may not be worse than they were a few years ago. “The big problem is that they haven’t adapted to the pace of social change. They haven’t evolved enough to serve the entire elderly population, whose demographic size is increasing every year,” he argues.
Packages of clothing from fast-fashion brand Shein await shipment at a factory in Guangzhou, China, on February 12. GILLES SABRIÉ (The New York Times / Contacto)
There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”
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