I have a theory why it feels like everything is getting worse (because it is). It’s deliberate and malicious.
For millennia, the gap in quality of life between the elite of society (the nobility) and the peasants was enormous.
The quality, quantity, and diversity of food, clothing, and other luxuries they had was unmatched by the peasants who lived in squalor and starvation.
But the advent of technology and capitalism changed that. In the last 200 years, the peasants have been playing catch-up.
The quality of life of the average person has increased greatly, closing the gap between the peasants and the elite. The average person lives better than a king two centuries ago, ample food, closets full of clothes, comfortable housing, the ability to travel the world.
This drives the elite mad. How dare we the people live a quality of life nearly as good as they do. Sure they can do things like afford $100 steaks at fancy restaurants, but does it taste 10x better than the $10 steak you can afford?
They have a luxury brand car, but the comforts of it are not substantially better than the comforts that come in a new middle-class car (Bluetooth infotainment, heated everything, etc.). It is an affront to them that you can live almost as well as they do.
They need to look down on us. They need to feel elevated over us. So they have been systematically reversing the trend of the last 200 years to increase the quality of life gap between us and them. They want to make us poorer so they can feel their wealth more acutely.
Their fancy home and nice steak will taste better to them when you live in a shoebox apartment pod with limited climate control heating your synthetic bug protein steak over ab electric range.
Understand that this is the whole reason for the existence of exclusive brands. Their products are not better, their value comes from only a small group being able to buy them. They want quality of life to be exclusive to the elite so it’s more precious to them.
You are being made to suffer on purpose.