Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the lead paragraph issues, yes. You win the steak knives!
I bought steak knives last year. The handles all shattered when I ran them through the dish washer.
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Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
31–40 of 192 posts
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Processes are hollow and some AI isn’t making my life any better. Goods are junk and there are few examples of common physical craftsmanship in the marketplace. MAGA just want a well made jacket but they are on a life line of Walmart wages and goods. I get it. Rage is appropriate yet misguided.
Rage is not approprate in most cases. It gets your blood pressure and adrenaline spiking, but doesn't do anything to fix the problem. It probably makes it worse because it clouds rational thought. Cheap goods have always been junk. Buy less, better stuff. Buy once, cry once.
Truly the response of a person of means who has never lived a life of do-withouts.
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#33> Nearly 80% of Americans had a service or product problem in 2025, and about two-thirds of those felt “rage” about it "Rage" is has been encouraged and reinforced as an appropriate reaction to what is most likely a simple mistake or process breakdown. Another way that social media and algorithmic feeds have pandered to our base emotions. We are becoming a world of tantrum-throwing toddlers.
With me on the older side of things, believe it when I tell you that things actually used to, for the most part, Just Work.
"Simple mistakes" and "process breakdowns" were uncommon, notable, and dealt with quickly. Even the cheap stuff tended to last for quite some time, and was often repairable when it failed.
Enshittification is not only real, it is accelerating.
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the lead paragraph issues, yes. You win the steak knives!
I bought steak knives last year. The handles all shattered when I ran them through the dish washer.
Please don’t run them through the dish washer. Limited heat tolerance is common even for the really good ones.
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Processes are hollow and some AI isn’t making my life any better. Goods are junk and there are few examples of common physical craftsmanship in the marketplace. MAGA just want a well made jacket but they are on a life line of Walmart wages and goods. I get it. Rage is appropriate yet misguided.
Rage is not approprate in most cases. It gets your blood pressure and adrenaline spiking, but doesn't do anything to fix the problem. It probably makes it worse because it clouds rational thought. Cheap goods have always been junk. Buy less, better stuff. Buy once, cry once.
You clearly have not seen the King of the Hill episode where Hank tries to tackle his anger
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#36This article reads like rage bait and it's about rage bait. Reading this then taking to the comments to kvetch about your personal suffering is learned helplessness writ large. There are so many beautiful parks. There are so many experiences to be had away from sources of rage & frustration. But you won't find it from a publication that depends on your rage addiction.
There are many beautiful parks and it's wonderful to spend time in them. But at some point you have to return to domesticity, and if you can't live that part of your life without being repeatedly screwed over by greedy corporations that don't even bother to provide a good service for the money you pay them, I think it's understandable people are starting to rage.
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#37Everything is a scam now. You can’t exchange money for products or services anymore. We just exchange money for scams.
I can't speak for "US consumers" broadly, but this is 100% why I'm angry as a consumer.
Everything is a fucking scam.
And often also a subscription for something that doesn't warrant being a subscription, and signing up is one click, cancelling is a written letter or a 3 hour long phone call (because see again the part where "Everything is a fucking scam").
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what is most likely a simple mistake or process breakdown I think this needs justification. My status quo is to believe that most times I have a problem when dealing with these large corporations that they've made any process for getting support or remediating what _should_ be a simple process breakdown is a labyrinth of steps to make it as difficult as possible to reach any sort of remedy to discourage you from ev…
Have you ever worked for a large corporation? Have you seen how bureaucratic everything is? It's the nature of the beast. It's not calculated, and not personal. It's a process scaled to deal with thousands or millions of people. That's why when I have a problem with my internet service, I never call, or use the website, or use the app. I go to the Xfinity retail store and talk to someone. I almost always leave satisf…
One can feel rage if something is intentional and annoying, unintentional but annoying, intentional and not annoying, unintentional and not annoying.
The first is justified. The second is understandable but a case of confusing it with the first. The last two also happen, and are not justified nor understandable.
Unfortunately there is currently an excess of the first case. I think people are arguing this is a problem. It probably causes the other 3 to happen more too.
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#39The Amazon app is unusable. I don't know what they are doing to it but today it wouldn't let me add more than 4 items. Also the design choices suck; I have always accidentally ordered to the wrong address because Amazon uses a "default address". A good rule of design; assume that the user doesn't think about things that they don't explicitly select. They also just advertise cheap crap and the app is so maximalist it…
Yeah just go to a local store and buy something. Feel some community and support community. It’s the life you’ve been missing and trying to buy with Amazon
Re: Why are US consumers so angry? It's not just high prices
#40I feel a very similar sentiment in Australia. Everything is poorly made and full of anti-features. It breaks prematurely, and software updates make it worse by disabling features, adding things I don't want, or holding functionality I already paid for to ransom as a subscription.
Warranties aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Every warranty claim I've made in the past 5 years (a fair few) has been a Kafka-esque nightmare of bouncing back and forth between reps who don't understand the issue, callbacks at inopportune times because of failure to understand timezones, and waiting for things to ship back and forth between repair centres across the country or overseas. Customer support is carefully crafted to be set up to fail, while still maintaining the plausible deniability of Hanlon's Razor. You may eventually get your widget repaired or replaced, but it'll cost you as much in time, effort, and frustration as it would have to just buy a new one. This is of course deliberate, but you'll never prove it. Companies exploit people's politeness and aversion to conflict by telling polite customers that there's nothing that can be done. You get nothing unless you dig your heels in and get combative with the rep who is just doing their job. And the consumer protection agencies are toothless tigers.
So now I don't buy new products unless there's no other option. Previously, buying new meant a product you could trust, and an assurance that they'd take care of you if something went wrong. Since that contract is broken, I see no point buying new. Especially not when last year's model often has more features, fewer anti-features, and better repairability than the current one. I'm not the only one responding like this: The snake cannot eat its own tail forever, and these companies will eventually discover that if they keep making their products shittier and shittier then people will just stop buying them. Especially once new competitors who need to build a reputation start to eat the established brands' lunches.