It really didn't always get worse for a while (at least in the US). McDonalds went from just a burger/rare treat to affordable, to so affordable we had to pass laws to limit how much food they gave out. Homes grew in size, stopped having shared bedrooms/bathrooms. Everyone started having dishwashers/microwaves in their kitchens. Clothes purchases moved from planned to spur of the moment. 27 inch TVs stopped being the norm. (I know this one is cliche, we'd rather decent lives than fancier circuses to distract, but at the time it was a 'wow the future is here' moment, big TVs only existed in rich friends homes, and they were HORRIBLE because they upscaled content designed for 27 inch TVs). Exercise clubs went from only for the rich tennis clubs to affordable gyms. Kids got their OWN computers. Meanwhile, quality was improving everywhere. Shoes, oh my god did shoes get better. Clothing quality got better to the point people in the 80s routinely just started wearing silk (SILK!!! can you believe it?) shirts. Sheet thread counts actually became a thing, holy moley the luxury. Computers went from Commodore 64s to modern wonders. Foods people ate at home/out got fancier, with all kinds of new discoveries.

My entire life up until 2008, almost everything around was getting better/cheaper. Yesterday at the store I wanted ice cream. I walked the aisle. Half the brands can no longer call themselves 'ice cream' legally. None of it felt like food to me. There is boutiques super expensive 'ice cream', but there used to be buckets of family friends priced 'ice cream' not whatever slop they sell now for the masses. Every single 'old school' brand I'm familiar with was a hollowed out corpse living off the name but selling trash that I don't consider fit (and remember, this is the junk food, already not really fit, segment).