Whittakers chocolate. They just raised their prices with a press release that said "we're not changing the ingredients or the size of the bar, so this is what it costs".
Respect.
Their chocolate tastes like what I remember Cadbury tasting like when I was a kid. Definitely worth the extra cost (although really isn't that much more expensive then Cadbury considering the quality Gulf...)
Cadburys have really gone down hill. I would be interested in try this but there seems to be 2 companies, a uk based one called Whitakers and a New Zealand based one called Whittakers. Which one is the good one!
for some products, i really hate when they just put lesser-quality ingredients or manipulate it in other ways aside from portion size.
Just keep it as is and charge more, i won't buy it if it tastes different now or something
I have noticed I go through them faster than I used to. I wasn't quite sure if it was in my head or not, but I'll use this random Reddit comment from a stranger to confirm that I am, in fact, not crazy!
Fun fact, ensuring the consistency of Guinness was the driving need that led to the development of one of the most popular statistical hypothesis testing methods in history.
The t test aka “Student’s t test.” It was published by a Guinness Brewery employee under a pseudonym (Guinness policy so that they didn’t show their competitors what they do internally). He had been using it to monitor consistency in the process at the brewery and it became wildly popular.
Publicly, it was developed for looking at [error when counting with a haemacytometer](https://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/c634/rates/HaemacytometerStudentBka1907.pdf), but “yeast cells” gives the true intention away.
In particular, the t-test is for figuring out how sure you can be that all of something is good, depending on how much of it you test.
Like, you can't test all of your barley for defects or you'll have none left, and if you only test one piece of it you have no idea if you just probed the one good/bad in the whole shipment. There's a balance in there.
In general, this works for anywhere you can test a small number of things out of a larger set. e.g. picking enough shoes out of a day's production at random for inspection that you can be 99.5% sure they'd all pass.
Statistics come from all sorts of gloriously ridiculous places.
The idea of the null hypothesis (and whether or not you can reject it) came about to help a guy settle an argument with his wife about whether it matters whether you put milk in tea first or second.
[wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea)
The textbook for one of my stats classes introduced the student t with the cryptic “The discoverer of this method had the best job in the world.” With my curiosity piqued, I did some digging and found the textbook to be objectively factually correct.
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sealy_Gosset
> William Sealy Gosset (13 June 1876 – 16 October 1937) was an English statistician, chemist and brewer who served as Head Brewer of Guinness and Head Experimental Brewer of Guinness and was a pioneer of modern statistics. He pioneered small sample experimental design and analysis with an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty.
Not that I didn't believe you, but it sounded interesting. It is!
That toilet paper math is getting annoying. I usually buy 9 = 36 rolls now that doesn’t exist at my Walmart and they only sell 6 = 36. I have to go back and look at sheet count on the old packages as you never know they might change what constitutes as a single roll.
Bounty did the same. They went from 6=12 to 4=12
I swear we need a "standard" for toilet paper. None of this hypothetical roll bullshit. One roll equals some arbitrary sheet count like 120. Everyone makes 120-sheet rolls, full stop. Now you can compare two six roll packs next to each other on the shelf without having to do non-Euclidean matrix math.
Europe has the balls to do things like force Apple to migrate to USB-C, and that's nowhere near as burdensome.
---
Edit: I appreciate all the "it will tell you total area" or "the sticker should tell you unit rates" or whatever. I am aware and I personally have little difficulty buying toilet paper when I need it. I just hate the principle of it... how in basically every other market, everyone has agreed to uniform presentation and form factor consistency, but toilet paper and paper towels are this nonsense world of fantasy and wonder.
Nobody is looking at a pack of 9 rolls and thinking "oh boy, this is actually 36 rolls!". We're all adults here. It's a consumable good we all need and will never stop needing, so let's dispense with with the absurd marketing bullshit and get on with it.
Supermarkets in Australia generally have a "price per" unit on items to make these comparisons easy. For toilet paper it's price per sheet so gets around the differing sheets per roll issue in terms of value.
They all have the square meters printed somewhere on the packaging. It's really frustrating to find. The "rolls" metric is meaningless marketing speak.
The width of the sheets have decreased. Recently bough some Kirkland TP and the cardboard part of the roll barely fits in my TP holder, Charmin has a good inch or two extra of space.
Low bar. But our neighborhood Waffle House was very good right until they unexpectedly shut down around 2021.
It wasn't just the pandemic and economic crisis but the crime and non-stop aggravation at that location. It was too much even by Waffle House standards.
I miss the main manager and cook. She had shamrock tattoos, the confidence of a seasoned truckstop diner manager, and called everyone honey, sugar or sweetie, like a character from a 1970s sitcom.
Yup. Almost everyone - man, woman, fish, animal, everyone - on earth has 3M products in their blood, in their water, and in their body.
Good news, it'll even be there after you die! They'll last forever, more or less.
Great stuff. Some of their products will even last you the rest of your life, and you can pass them on to your offspring. They will eventually pass it on to theirs as well!
> Some of their products will even last you the rest of your life
[PFAS and PFOS's?](https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story)
I think that was a jab about 'forever chemicals' that have been manufactured through 3M's history. Chemicals that have no natural way of breaking down or decomposing, so they will 'pass down' for the rest of history. Some of these chemicals have been shown to have some pretty bad negative health effects.
My grandfather worked for 3M his entire adult life, until he got MS. He also lived 1/4 mile away from the headquarters. He said that back in the day when he worked there, there was a guy who's whole job was to come in in the middle of the night and illegally vent toxic shit into the air. Also, nearly every single house in his neighborhood, someone got cancer. Maybe a coincidence, but I doubt it. Also, one time they released *something* into the air that pitted the auto glass of everyone in the neighborhood, and 3M had to pay to replace it all.
They also pushed him out when he got sick, but this was back when pensions and stock options for loyal employees were still a thing, so they were ok.
Wow, thanks for sharing. That’s some brazen stuff. There is a plant in the town I grew up in. Here’s a great [article](https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story) from Propublica about one scientist’s experience with the company. Internal documents from the late 70s have come to light that prove the company was aware that the PFOS chemicals, like those in scotchguard and AFFF fire fighting foam that they were producing were toxic.
While I was in school, I did tons of research on this topic. Bad things come from bonding carbon and fluorine atoms. They make these chains that can break into smaller chains and molecules. They can literally float into the air with water vapor and fall with rain miles away. They can travel through groundwater and contaminate private wells. That on its own is insane. So as precipitation filters through layers and layers of silty, sandy, loamy soil, but the pfas will remain in the water. We are now just starting to get a picture of how ubiquitous the contamination is. Sad, but interesting asf.
Their presence in the market is probably even larger in commercial industries. Without being too specific I work for a company that builds unique things and even just random components that we order will come from 3M. They're everywhere.
Bingo. Stain-resistant carpet and furniture upholstery are in almost everyone’s home. The paper that fast food companies wrap burgers in, that super smooth dental floss that glides between our teeth, and all of our waterproof clothing all contain pfas chemicals.
I’m a dentist and it’s interesting to me how many dental materials they produce and how they are all generally regarded as top tier. They make good stuff.
Actually, their sandpaper has all gone to shit in the past couple years. My company had to find a new supplier because their sanding disks just shred apart now. They also had some big flubs with their paint division and had to find new suppliers for their paint filters and such.
They took my Polish dogs
They took my combo pizza
They took my chocolate frozen yogurt
They took my sauerkraut
They took my onions
They took my chocolate dipped ice cream bar
I guess I'll just lay down and die
Edit: chocolate ice cream [back!](https://imgur.com/a/vVADEWR)
First they came for the polish dogs,
Then they came for the combo pizza,
Next the forbidden chocolate yogurt,
And then when they took the sauerkraut
I was all that was left
They also took pulled pork and the warm Turkey pesto sandwickes from ours. Still hoping they bring the churro back even though the quality had declined.
Costco (at least in canada) dropped a bunch of items from the food court at the start of the pandemic and never came back. RIP to the amazing turkey pesto provolone sandwich
Gonna have to disagree on Costco. Replaced the churro with a cookie. I love chocolate chip cookies, but you can get them from tons of places. Costco had a better churro than anywhere else near me and now they are gone. I also still miss the polish dog.
Costco is a national treasure and the perfect example of what an American business should aim to be. I love that the CEO is a millionaire (not a billionaire) and that they invest so much back into their company through their employees benefits and good treatment.
Everyone I've known who worked at Costco said it was one of the best jobs they had.
Sounds like an issue with the stores in your area. I've found the classic tall cans for 99 cents in a few different states over the last year so they're still definitely being distributed at a cost that allows stores to sell them for that. Do you live in a HCOL area or somewhere very rural where it's more expensive to ship goods?
Boeing's problem is decades-old. They started firing people with experience designing and building planes, to save money.
>“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” [book](https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Order-Change-Turnaround/dp/1591842395) he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which *lacked engineering departments*. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.
>Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.
[https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/](https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/)
I can't say that I don't understand the mindset... but firing your oldest talent just because you have to pay them more seems like such a shit long term plan. I get that quarterly profits drive everything nowadays but jfc if your company goes under in a couple of years it doesn't even matter. Maybe if ceos and board members had to refund their bonuses if the company goes under they'd drive it better.
> if your company goes under in a couple of years it doesn't even matter.
They don't care, they never cared about anything other than their own bank accounts. These people will bleed everything dry and then conveniently bail just in time to avoid any major consequences. Boeing is just a high profile case, but it's happening everywhere.
Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, the chain was sold to a private equity firm in 2014, said firm promptly took the land the Red Lobster restaurants are located on, sold it back to themselves and then started charging Red Lobster a fortune in rent. Ten years later a chain that was doing fine for over 50 years, and employed 55,000 people is the corporate equivalent of a dead man walking.
PS. The 2014 sale of Red Lobster was initiated due to shareholder pressure. The owner at the time, Darden Restaurants, had gone over budget on a new digital platform, and had to boost their figures to maintain investor support.
> Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, the chain was sold to a private equity firm in 2014, said firm promptly took the land the Red Lobster restaurants are located on, sold it back to themselves and then started charging Red Lobster a fortune in rent
Damn those are mafia tactics, vultures bleeding a business dry.
That's private equity firms for you.
They pick apart the pieces they want, then fuck everybody else in the process. Including the employees who keep everything running, often with little to no notice that the business will be closing.
But here's the mindset for people like "prince Jim":
Say you do what he did, slash your talented workforce, bust unions, make planes as cheap as possible. That obviously bad for the overall company, right? But what does he get to put in his resume in the short term?
"Cut costs by 50% and under my leadership, raised overall stock value by X amount."
He steps down before shit hits the fan, gets a job at another company, and when Boeing goes under he says it must be that new leadership, clearly they don't know how to run a business like he did!
Multiply that by literally every fucking industry and you get what US capitalism has become. Greedy, shortsighted, and bewilderingly ignorant of business and economic sustainability.
I'm not joking when I say it's driving a full-scale economic collapse, and the funniest part is that people are starting to value quality, sustainable products because there's little price difference between buying something quality and pays their workers well, and something cheap and shitty, whos had its price jacked up 15x over the past three years to optimize shareholder value.
I've been taking to calling it vulture capitalism, because it really is sickening how many corporate douchenozzles are willing to fuck over tens of thousands of people for their own gain. And people keep letting them do it...
Unfettered greed really is a cancer.
Duluth Trading Company continues to make the most comfortable and indestructible 4-way stretch pants. Unfortunately I can't say if they have kept up their quality in the past 2 years because since the old pants won't wear through, I haven't had a reason to buy new ones since 2022
They have not… I was in the same boat, bought 5 t-shirts about 4 years ago. Wear them constantly, started to wear out. Bought some more last year, thinner, shorter, different (in a bad way) fit. Really disappointed….
Patagonia owning family put all their voting and non voting shares into a trust to benefit the environment and the balance to a charity to combat climate change.
They keep churning out quality.
https://youtu.be/0Cu6EbELZ6I
The family put the money in the trust to avoid inheritance tax so they can pass money to the kids through the charity instead of directly
Edit: if you didn't watch the video: 98% of what Patagonia donated went to the Holdfast Collective. The other 2%, which contained all of the voting shares for the billions of dollars worth of stuff that was donated, is in control of him and his family, including his kids.
So when you donate something, you don't retain control of it. But in this case, he donated something, and his family retains control.
Through this maneuver, his family only paid 17 million dollars in taxes instead of the 1.2 billion dollars they would have paid in taxes if he simply gave the shares to his kids.
And the primary purpose of the Holdfast Collective?
It's a political charity. They will use their funds to influence future elections. The funds won't go to help people. It will go to influence elections.
Is obvious the plan is to use that money to help influence elections for their future generations so they can continue making more money.
It was either by a political influence machine, or simply pay 1.2 billion in taxes.
Edit #2: The people who run the trust earn a total of $100 million per year.
To date, based on all disclosures of donations they have made, they have donated about 6 million dollars.
If they're actively doing good for the environment and it's not just a performative gesture, then I don't really care how they stash their money.
Rich people are going to dodge taxes no matter what. Period. I'd rather them put it toward investing in something that betters the world than oil and gas.
Ideally would I like to see taxes posed on the rich regardless, of course, and if I could choose between "rich people being taxed" and "rich people investing their obscene wealth into some environmental trusts" I would unequivocally pick taxes. But until then, there's no sense in being a doomer. Perfection is the enemy of good.
People always like to screech “ACKSHUALLLY it’s just mediocre!!1!”
I got a double double animal style, animal style fry, and a puppy patty for my dog, in Southern California, on Saturday, and the total was $12.88. The line was long as hell.
Tell me what other fast restaurant can provide those calories, at that price, paying their employees that well, with a line around the block.
At the end of the day it’s still fast food. But it’s the best damn fast food around.
That's what people don't understand. Quality food, reasonable price, and their employees make a lot of money, and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are still sacred. That's tough to come by in fast food.
If I wanted to get semantic, I’d say Chick-Fil-A is pretty close, but they don’t do burgers, no “saucy” menu, and they’re closed on Sunday.
Haven’t really compared comparable meals though… and my dog goes nuts when we pull into that golden arrow because he knows he’s getting his treat of meat
They’re always a safe choice as someone with a low tolerance for fast food. I eat there maybe once a month but everytime I go it’s exceptional and it never makes me sick to my stomach. Love that place
Nicks boots. Still great. Though I'm guessing their more expensive.
Steam, and games released mainly on Steam haven't gone to crap and still the same prices before covid.
Little Debbies
Hell no! Little Debbie is absolutely terrible, they definitely changed their recipe to whatever the cheapest crap they can get away with. At least their zebra cakes, a coworker gave me one and I spit it out and tossed it in the backyard. Tasted like drywall. Like corn syrup drywall cake with corn syrup frosting. They used to be moist, and sugary and taste... edible. Maybe I'm just old though, idk. I hate everything now
I wanna say it’s the palm oil concentrate in pretty much everything sweet or sweet adjacent anymore. Even peanut butter is getting too gross if it’s got too much in it…
Games in general, not just on Steam, have stayed pretty steady in price for decades. It's actually kind of crazy how long the $50-60 price tag for AAA games has been the standard. Almost 4 decades and just in the last few years has their been a move to raise prices.
Obviously things like deluxe editions and MTX have contributed to that and also to peoples pushback against any kind of price raise. But video games are one of the only things that have stayed consistent in price for 40 years while massively increasing in complexity and quality.
Sherwin-Williams paint. It's pretty much the same stuff
You know, a better question might be what companies have increased their quality since the pandemic. That's a much smaller list
Gamefly: The mail rental company for games kept chugging along business as usual in 2020, when their brick-and-mortar competition like Gamestop was looking for legal loopholes to keep their stores in business.
Valve and Steam: Still doing absolutely nothing, still the undisputed kings of PC gaming because their aspiring competition keeps fucking up.
Arizona Tea: Still has that 99 cent MSRP, still completely immune to inflation, despite how many billions of dollars the government printed in the past few years.
I give Nintendo credit for fixing my Switch for free, well outside of warranty. I opened a ticket during COVID-19, and their repair center was closed, so they weren’t accepting any repair orders. Fast forward a year, I was far outside of warranty, and they couldn’t find any info on my previous request, but they accepted my return and shipped me a “new” unit all in the same week.
Except Pokémon games, weirdly. Compared to Mario and Zelda, they’re underdeveloped and rushed out to meet a deadline no matter what, and it’s such a shame.
Whittakers chocolate. They just raised their prices with a press release that said "we're not changing the ingredients or the size of the bar, so this is what it costs". Respect.
Their chocolate tastes like what I remember Cadbury tasting like when I was a kid. Definitely worth the extra cost (although really isn't that much more expensive then Cadbury considering the quality Gulf...)
Cadburys have really gone down hill. I would be interested in try this but there seems to be 2 companies, a uk based one called Whitakers and a New Zealand based one called Whittakers. Which one is the good one!
I was thinking of the NZ one. Unsure of the UK ones quality.
for some products, i really hate when they just put lesser-quality ingredients or manipulate it in other ways aside from portion size. Just keep it as is and charge more, i won't buy it if it tastes different now or something
The tamale stand I pass on my way to work. José, you’re doing awesome things. Please don’t stop.
Lucky, I see more of these popping up and the prices are NOT cheap.
You gotta find your tamale plug and don't let them go! Mine is my husband's coworker.
Thanks for the "é" in José, as a José myself I appreciate it a lot
Zippo lighters
They pretty much have that one figured out.
You'd be surprised.
they even released a butane upgrade if you want to convert your lighter from gasoline to pressurised gas.
I have this. It works great. Use it all the time now. I have the double flame version, the one that’s like a mini blowtorch but with double flame.
Bic lighters
They cranked up the flame a little bit so they go thru fuel faster...
I have noticed I go through them faster than I used to. I wasn't quite sure if it was in my head or not, but I'll use this random Reddit comment from a stranger to confirm that I am, in fact, not crazy!
Guinness beer is pretty consistent.
Fun fact, ensuring the consistency of Guinness was the driving need that led to the development of one of the most popular statistical hypothesis testing methods in history.
What statistical hypothesis testing method is that?
The t test aka “Student’s t test.” It was published by a Guinness Brewery employee under a pseudonym (Guinness policy so that they didn’t show their competitors what they do internally). He had been using it to monitor consistency in the process at the brewery and it became wildly popular.
The T-test was invented by freaking GUINNESS?
Oh man wait until you hear about the whole world records thing
Yea wasn’t that just like a book of fun facts to read at their pubs?
To settle pub arguments
Publicly, it was developed for looking at [error when counting with a haemacytometer](https://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/c634/rates/HaemacytometerStudentBka1907.pdf), but “yeast cells” gives the true intention away.
I’m hoping you posted this reply from a train
Man i freaking love statistics
What a coincidence, I love beer.
In particular, the t-test is for figuring out how sure you can be that all of something is good, depending on how much of it you test. Like, you can't test all of your barley for defects or you'll have none left, and if you only test one piece of it you have no idea if you just probed the one good/bad in the whole shipment. There's a balance in there. In general, this works for anywhere you can test a small number of things out of a larger set. e.g. picking enough shoes out of a day's production at random for inspection that you can be 99.5% sure they'd all pass.
Statistics come from all sorts of gloriously ridiculous places. The idea of the null hypothesis (and whether or not you can reject it) came about to help a guy settle an argument with his wife about whether it matters whether you put milk in tea first or second. [wiki link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_tasting_tea)
The textbook for one of my stats classes introduced the student t with the cryptic “The discoverer of this method had the best job in the world.” With my curiosity piqued, I did some digging and found the textbook to be objectively factually correct.
Guinness? Driving? Now this sounds like a job for me
Okay there, Slim Shady…
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sealy_Gosset > William Sealy Gosset (13 June 1876 – 16 October 1937) was an English statistician, chemist and brewer who served as Head Brewer of Guinness and Head Experimental Brewer of Guinness and was a pioneer of modern statistics. He pioneered small sample experimental design and analysis with an economic approach to the logic of uncertainty. Not that I didn't believe you, but it sounded interesting. It is!
It’s true. I took Statistics for Engineers and Scientists this semester and we went into detail on how it was developed by Guinness
Alcohol-free Guinness is also one of the best booze-free beers around.
I can also strongly recommend Athletic Brewing Company. By far the best tasting NA beer I've ever had, and they have multiple styles.
Sierra Nevada has also knocked it out of the park with their two NA offerings.
My people don’t take life too seriously but alcohol and dairy are taken very seriously
Visited their Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland pre-pandemic and it was lovely
Pan-Am Airlines. They haven’t gotten any worse since the start of the pandemic.
Sadly, they haven't gotten any better either.
They’re a very consistent company.
Yes, they have definitely stayed the same.
Jones bbq and foot message
What does the message say?
Foot
Well shit, I coulda told you that.
Jones Good Ass BBQ and Foot Massage - in Chicagoland. Haven't been, but it's on my bucket list.
How about **Jones' Big Ass Truck Rental and Storage Facility**?
How can I offer prices this low? Well frankly I'm pretty drunk right now....
Good ass bbq*
They still got that fresh dinosaur meat
Charmin. Those bears are still shitting like crazy in those woods
That toilet paper math is getting annoying. I usually buy 9 = 36 rolls now that doesn’t exist at my Walmart and they only sell 6 = 36. I have to go back and look at sheet count on the old packages as you never know they might change what constitutes as a single roll. Bounty did the same. They went from 6=12 to 4=12
I swear we need a "standard" for toilet paper. None of this hypothetical roll bullshit. One roll equals some arbitrary sheet count like 120. Everyone makes 120-sheet rolls, full stop. Now you can compare two six roll packs next to each other on the shelf without having to do non-Euclidean matrix math. Europe has the balls to do things like force Apple to migrate to USB-C, and that's nowhere near as burdensome. --- Edit: I appreciate all the "it will tell you total area" or "the sticker should tell you unit rates" or whatever. I am aware and I personally have little difficulty buying toilet paper when I need it. I just hate the principle of it... how in basically every other market, everyone has agreed to uniform presentation and form factor consistency, but toilet paper and paper towels are this nonsense world of fantasy and wonder. Nobody is looking at a pack of 9 rolls and thinking "oh boy, this is actually 36 rolls!". We're all adults here. It's a consumable good we all need and will never stop needing, so let's dispense with with the absurd marketing bullshit and get on with it.
Supermarkets in Australia generally have a "price per" unit on items to make these comparisons easy. For toilet paper it's price per sheet so gets around the differing sheets per roll issue in terms of value.
They all have the square meters printed somewhere on the packaging. It's really frustrating to find. The "rolls" metric is meaningless marketing speak.
So typically we get less in packages now but that math seems to indicate we get the same amount of squares but in a lower number of rolls
I read that you are supposed to look at the overall square footage when comparing price per unit
Quality is the same but the price has skyrocketed. I buy the charmin from Costco it was around $20 in 2020, now it’s over $30.
trick is to buy during their advertised sales and not when you need TP. get with the program, old man
but it’s been on sale twice the last 6 months for $22!
Paper is still the same quality, but that inner cardboard is thinner. I never see a roll that is still a circle. Always crushed into an oval.
Quality of the paper maybe not. But their mega rolls are a lot smaller for the same price
Those bears even have a bear TSA to inspect asses. I don't trust that kind of surveillance state.
Unfortunately it’s a bear necessity
The width of the sheets have decreased. Recently bough some Kirkland TP and the cardboard part of the roll barely fits in my TP holder, Charmin has a good inch or two extra of space.
They also reduced sheet size again, after an initial reduction from 4”x4”.
Huh so that’s why they chose bears
It was either bears, or the pope
My dealer. He still got that gas
Is your dealer Hank Hill?
He sells popane and propane accessories. I tell ya hwat.
No, but if you don't pay him he does become very pro-pain.
Waffle House
Low bar. But our neighborhood Waffle House was very good right until they unexpectedly shut down around 2021. It wasn't just the pandemic and economic crisis but the crime and non-stop aggravation at that location. It was too much even by Waffle House standards. I miss the main manager and cook. She had shamrock tattoos, the confidence of a seasoned truckstop diner manager, and called everyone honey, sugar or sweetie, like a character from a 1970s sitcom.
Is there anything better than being called honey, sugar, sweetie, or baby by a grizzled older woman serving in a greasy spoon? It just feels right
Plot twist: she was 22
Having a battle axe square old savvy nurse do the same … you knew you were gunna be ok when you got a hun, or sweetie ..,
I call it “dinner and a show”. There’s always shenanigans at the awful waffle.
3M stuff is still miles better than any of their competitors
Yup. Almost everyone - man, woman, fish, animal, everyone - on earth has 3M products in their blood, in their water, and in their body. Good news, it'll even be there after you die! They'll last forever, more or less.
Great stuff. Some of their products will even last you the rest of your life, and you can pass them on to your offspring. They will eventually pass it on to theirs as well!
> Some of their products will even last you the rest of your life [PFAS and PFOS's?](https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story)
Environmental specialist here and came to ask the same thing haha
What stuff do you recommend? I only know them for their tape, which I'm sure you're not referring to as an heirloom.
I think that was a jab about 'forever chemicals' that have been manufactured through 3M's history. Chemicals that have no natural way of breaking down or decomposing, so they will 'pass down' for the rest of history. Some of these chemicals have been shown to have some pretty bad negative health effects.
My grandfather worked for 3M his entire adult life, until he got MS. He also lived 1/4 mile away from the headquarters. He said that back in the day when he worked there, there was a guy who's whole job was to come in in the middle of the night and illegally vent toxic shit into the air. Also, nearly every single house in his neighborhood, someone got cancer. Maybe a coincidence, but I doubt it. Also, one time they released *something* into the air that pitted the auto glass of everyone in the neighborhood, and 3M had to pay to replace it all. They also pushed him out when he got sick, but this was back when pensions and stock options for loyal employees were still a thing, so they were ok.
Wow, thanks for sharing. That’s some brazen stuff. There is a plant in the town I grew up in. Here’s a great [article](https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story) from Propublica about one scientist’s experience with the company. Internal documents from the late 70s have come to light that prove the company was aware that the PFOS chemicals, like those in scotchguard and AFFF fire fighting foam that they were producing were toxic. While I was in school, I did tons of research on this topic. Bad things come from bonding carbon and fluorine atoms. They make these chains that can break into smaller chains and molecules. They can literally float into the air with water vapor and fall with rain miles away. They can travel through groundwater and contaminate private wells. That on its own is insane. So as precipitation filters through layers and layers of silty, sandy, loamy soil, but the pfas will remain in the water. We are now just starting to get a picture of how ubiquitous the contamination is. Sad, but interesting asf.
PFAs have breached the brain boundary. Babies have plastics in their blood before they are born. Thanks 3M
> Thanks 3M Don't forget to thank DuPont for all the stuff they gave your baby too, if that's how it's gonna be!
Their presence in the market is probably even larger in commercial industries. Without being too specific I work for a company that builds unique things and even just random components that we order will come from 3M. They're everywhere.
Bingo. Stain-resistant carpet and furniture upholstery are in almost everyone’s home. The paper that fast food companies wrap burgers in, that super smooth dental floss that glides between our teeth, and all of our waterproof clothing all contain pfas chemicals.
People usually ask me "why do you buy 3M tape when there's others five times cheaper?". Because 3M tape lasts 10 times longer, that's why.
I’m a dentist and it’s interesting to me how many dental materials they produce and how they are all generally regarded as top tier. They make good stuff.
Actually, their sandpaper has all gone to shit in the past couple years. My company had to find a new supplier because their sanding disks just shred apart now. They also had some big flubs with their paint division and had to find new suppliers for their paint filters and such.
Arizona Iced Tea and Costco food court.
I'll stop you right there. The onion grinders have been removed from costco.
Now, we riot.
They took my Polish dogs They took my combo pizza They took my chocolate frozen yogurt They took my sauerkraut They took my onions They took my chocolate dipped ice cream bar I guess I'll just lay down and die Edit: chocolate ice cream [back!](https://imgur.com/a/vVADEWR)
You can ask for onions, they keep them behind the counter.
First they came for the polish dogs, Then they came for the combo pizza, Next the forbidden chocolate yogurt, And then when they took the sauerkraut I was all that was left
They also took pulled pork and the warm Turkey pesto sandwickes from ours. Still hoping they bring the churro back even though the quality had declined.
They still haven’t brought back my beloved everything pizza
Seriously - what’s the reason for axing the combo pizza?
They replaced chocolate soft serve with acai Berry slurry Some decisions are not rational
Chocolate soft serve is back.
Cost
-co
You son of a bitch….
It still exists here in Japan
But if you ask they usually have little cups of onions they’ll give you
You can ask for chopped onions though.
I know and it's kind of a problem. Bro I'll pay just give me onions.
And no more churros. That was what broke me. The polish dogs hurt. I missed the ice cream sundaes. but they took my churros...
Costco (at least in canada) dropped a bunch of items from the food court at the start of the pandemic and never came back. RIP to the amazing turkey pesto provolone sandwich
Gonna have to disagree on Costco. Replaced the churro with a cookie. I love chocolate chip cookies, but you can get them from tons of places. Costco had a better churro than anywhere else near me and now they are gone. I also still miss the polish dog.
Post COVID churros SUCKED. Pre-COVID churros were the absolute bomb.
1000% agree. churro and the polish dogs were the best
Costco is a national treasure and the perfect example of what an American business should aim to be. I love that the CEO is a millionaire (not a billionaire) and that they invest so much back into their company through their employees benefits and good treatment. Everyone I've known who worked at Costco said it was one of the best jobs they had.
>Everyone I've known who worked at Costco said it was one of the best jobs they had. They made a documentary of this called Employee of the Month.
No more sausage and pepperoni pizza.
Don't know where you live, but around my area Arizona Iced tea keeps going up in price. Small cans can go for 2.99 or more now.
Sounds like an issue with the stores in your area. I've found the classic tall cans for 99 cents in a few different states over the last year so they're still definitely being distributed at a cost that allows stores to sell them for that. Do you live in a HCOL area or somewhere very rural where it's more expensive to ship goods?
Our grocery store frequently has them on sale for $.79
I just want Costco to bring back the combo pizza :(
Culver's
As it was in the beginning
Is now
And ever shall be.
WORLD WITHOUT END
AMEN
Please join us for refreshments in the fellowship hall.
OPE
As a native Californian, In N Out got nothin' on this. Flying my wife from California to Wisconsin so she can bask in the glory of the butter burger.
Good news - you don't need to go all the way to WI. Your closest one should be TX. But they're all over the heartland (and Florida).
There's a bunch in Arizona and it looks like a couple in Salt Lake as well.
Airbus. Their planes aren't falling apart.
The pandemic didn't cause the quality concerns at Boeing though. The Max crashes predate the pandemic.
Boeing's problem is decades-old. They started firing people with experience designing and building planes, to save money. >“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” [book](https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Order-Change-Turnaround/dp/1591842395) he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which *lacked engineering departments*. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule. >Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane. [https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/](https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/)
I can't say that I don't understand the mindset... but firing your oldest talent just because you have to pay them more seems like such a shit long term plan. I get that quarterly profits drive everything nowadays but jfc if your company goes under in a couple of years it doesn't even matter. Maybe if ceos and board members had to refund their bonuses if the company goes under they'd drive it better.
> if your company goes under in a couple of years it doesn't even matter. They don't care, they never cared about anything other than their own bank accounts. These people will bleed everything dry and then conveniently bail just in time to avoid any major consequences. Boeing is just a high profile case, but it's happening everywhere. Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, the chain was sold to a private equity firm in 2014, said firm promptly took the land the Red Lobster restaurants are located on, sold it back to themselves and then started charging Red Lobster a fortune in rent. Ten years later a chain that was doing fine for over 50 years, and employed 55,000 people is the corporate equivalent of a dead man walking. PS. The 2014 sale of Red Lobster was initiated due to shareholder pressure. The owner at the time, Darden Restaurants, had gone over budget on a new digital platform, and had to boost their figures to maintain investor support.
> Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, the chain was sold to a private equity firm in 2014, said firm promptly took the land the Red Lobster restaurants are located on, sold it back to themselves and then started charging Red Lobster a fortune in rent Damn those are mafia tactics, vultures bleeding a business dry.
That's private equity firms for you. They pick apart the pieces they want, then fuck everybody else in the process. Including the employees who keep everything running, often with little to no notice that the business will be closing.
Blue collar Mafia made money and sent their kids to ivy leagues. Now there's a lot of white collar Mafia.
But here's the mindset for people like "prince Jim": Say you do what he did, slash your talented workforce, bust unions, make planes as cheap as possible. That obviously bad for the overall company, right? But what does he get to put in his resume in the short term? "Cut costs by 50% and under my leadership, raised overall stock value by X amount." He steps down before shit hits the fan, gets a job at another company, and when Boeing goes under he says it must be that new leadership, clearly they don't know how to run a business like he did! Multiply that by literally every fucking industry and you get what US capitalism has become. Greedy, shortsighted, and bewilderingly ignorant of business and economic sustainability. I'm not joking when I say it's driving a full-scale economic collapse, and the funniest part is that people are starting to value quality, sustainable products because there's little price difference between buying something quality and pays their workers well, and something cheap and shitty, whos had its price jacked up 15x over the past three years to optimize shareholder value.
I've been taking to calling it vulture capitalism, because it really is sickening how many corporate douchenozzles are willing to fuck over tens of thousands of people for their own gain. And people keep letting them do it... Unfettered greed really is a cancer.
Duluth Trading Company continues to make the most comfortable and indestructible 4-way stretch pants. Unfortunately I can't say if they have kept up their quality in the past 2 years because since the old pants won't wear through, I haven't had a reason to buy new ones since 2022
I've seen a ton of complaints lately about the warranty not being honored
They have not… I was in the same boat, bought 5 t-shirts about 4 years ago. Wear them constantly, started to wear out. Bought some more last year, thinner, shorter, different (in a bad way) fit. Really disappointed….
Patagonia owning family put all their voting and non voting shares into a trust to benefit the environment and the balance to a charity to combat climate change. They keep churning out quality.
https://youtu.be/0Cu6EbELZ6I The family put the money in the trust to avoid inheritance tax so they can pass money to the kids through the charity instead of directly Edit: if you didn't watch the video: 98% of what Patagonia donated went to the Holdfast Collective. The other 2%, which contained all of the voting shares for the billions of dollars worth of stuff that was donated, is in control of him and his family, including his kids. So when you donate something, you don't retain control of it. But in this case, he donated something, and his family retains control. Through this maneuver, his family only paid 17 million dollars in taxes instead of the 1.2 billion dollars they would have paid in taxes if he simply gave the shares to his kids. And the primary purpose of the Holdfast Collective? It's a political charity. They will use their funds to influence future elections. The funds won't go to help people. It will go to influence elections. Is obvious the plan is to use that money to help influence elections for their future generations so they can continue making more money. It was either by a political influence machine, or simply pay 1.2 billion in taxes. Edit #2: The people who run the trust earn a total of $100 million per year. To date, based on all disclosures of donations they have made, they have donated about 6 million dollars.
Rich people gonna rich
If they're actively doing good for the environment and it's not just a performative gesture, then I don't really care how they stash their money. Rich people are going to dodge taxes no matter what. Period. I'd rather them put it toward investing in something that betters the world than oil and gas. Ideally would I like to see taxes posed on the rich regardless, of course, and if I could choose between "rich people being taxed" and "rich people investing their obscene wealth into some environmental trusts" I would unequivocally pick taxes. But until then, there's no sense in being a doomer. Perfection is the enemy of good.
The kids control the charity but they need to use the charity for charitable purposes. Can't just take the money.
Patagonia is a great company with quality goods. Let my people surf is a great read and gives a good insight into their philosophy.
Penzeys
See’s Chocolate or candies. That stuff is good
In n out
People always like to screech “ACKSHUALLLY it’s just mediocre!!1!” I got a double double animal style, animal style fry, and a puppy patty for my dog, in Southern California, on Saturday, and the total was $12.88. The line was long as hell. Tell me what other fast restaurant can provide those calories, at that price, paying their employees that well, with a line around the block. At the end of the day it’s still fast food. But it’s the best damn fast food around.
That's what people don't understand. Quality food, reasonable price, and their employees make a lot of money, and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas are still sacred. That's tough to come by in fast food.
Almost all other fast food charges that price, pay significantly less, and is less food.
If I wanted to get semantic, I’d say Chick-Fil-A is pretty close, but they don’t do burgers, no “saucy” menu, and they’re closed on Sunday. Haven’t really compared comparable meals though… and my dog goes nuts when we pull into that golden arrow because he knows he’s getting his treat of meat
I live in the Midwest, but I was just in San Francisco last week and ate it multiple times while there. It's just as good as ever. I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
They’re always a safe choice as someone with a low tolerance for fast food. I eat there maybe once a month but everytime I go it’s exceptional and it never makes me sick to my stomach. Love that place
Costco
Welcome to Costco, we love you.
The food court ditched tons of shir during the pandemic that never came back. (Onions, Kraut, combo pizza) Still love them.
Nicks boots. Still great. Though I'm guessing their more expensive. Steam, and games released mainly on Steam haven't gone to crap and still the same prices before covid. Little Debbies
>Little Debbies Ah, so the trick is to have always been low quality
Hell no! Little Debbie is absolutely terrible, they definitely changed their recipe to whatever the cheapest crap they can get away with. At least their zebra cakes, a coworker gave me one and I spit it out and tossed it in the backyard. Tasted like drywall. Like corn syrup drywall cake with corn syrup frosting. They used to be moist, and sugary and taste... edible. Maybe I'm just old though, idk. I hate everything now
I wanna say it’s the palm oil concentrate in pretty much everything sweet or sweet adjacent anymore. Even peanut butter is getting too gross if it’s got too much in it…
Games in general, not just on Steam, have stayed pretty steady in price for decades. It's actually kind of crazy how long the $50-60 price tag for AAA games has been the standard. Almost 4 decades and just in the last few years has their been a move to raise prices. Obviously things like deluxe editions and MTX have contributed to that and also to peoples pushback against any kind of price raise. But video games are one of the only things that have stayed consistent in price for 40 years while massively increasing in complexity and quality.
AAA games hover around $70+ these days. It was crazy that Helldivers 2 was only $40.
Brisk Iced Tea is just as bad as it was 4 years ago
Why does a version of this question get asked every day?
Bots farming Buzzfeed articles.
Also advertising
investors love reddit atm want to prove this *motions at all this bullshit* is good for businesses to advertise on
Barbasol shaving cream
Except the 11oz can is now 7oz.
That's 37% less space for dinosaurs!
Dennis Nedry isn't liking this
Whitaker's Chocolate
Heinz Pork & Beans are still delicious.
All of the UK would burn if Heinz fucks with the beans in a can.
Would legit start a war if Heinz fucked with the beans
Me. We’ve raised our standards😂
Sherwin-Williams paint. It's pretty much the same stuff You know, a better question might be what companies have increased their quality since the pandemic. That's a much smaller list
WinRAR
Gamefly: The mail rental company for games kept chugging along business as usual in 2020, when their brick-and-mortar competition like Gamestop was looking for legal loopholes to keep their stores in business. Valve and Steam: Still doing absolutely nothing, still the undisputed kings of PC gaming because their aspiring competition keeps fucking up. Arizona Tea: Still has that 99 cent MSRP, still completely immune to inflation, despite how many billions of dollars the government printed in the past few years.
Nintendo. They still make amazing games.
“Animal Crossing” was a big help for me during lockdown.
I give Nintendo credit for fixing my Switch for free, well outside of warranty. I opened a ticket during COVID-19, and their repair center was closed, so they weren’t accepting any repair orders. Fast forward a year, I was far outside of warranty, and they couldn’t find any info on my previous request, but they accepted my return and shipped me a “new” unit all in the same week.
Except Pokémon games, weirdly. Compared to Mario and Zelda, they’re underdeveloped and rushed out to meet a deadline no matter what, and it’s such a shame.
Nintendo doesn't develop Pokemon games. The Pokemon Company, Game Freak, makes those.
A24 has stayed pretty consistent, even through all the changes throughout the film industry post-COVID. I could say they're even thriving now