I think you're underestimating the technological development in the last 80 years to a comical degree. In 1944, half the country didn't have flush toilets!
Anyone who does serious work with ancient technologies knows both that the older stuff was much more repairable but also needed to be repaired much more often.
Material and building science has advanced a mind boggling tremendous amount - even modern toilets are significantly better than an actual un-upgraded 40’s - if you can find it.
At the same time we can mass manufacture endless cheap plastic shit.
Exactly - what most people are really complaining about when they say everything is crap these days is that other people make different decisions about purchasing, or that they wish they were forced to buy the higher quality item.
It is a bit annoying to have to search and find high-quality items, but it's still doable.
It’s amusing that you presume to know what people are really complaining about.
Even better is pointing out a perfectly valid concern regarding higher search costs, and then brushing that aside altogether simply because it doesn’t completely prevent search.
And remember that just a few years before in 1936, there was the Rural Electrification Act to provide rural people in the US (who had basically been living 19th-century style) with electricity, which was standard for town and city dwellers for decades.
