Like with much in the political situation, I think it's sort of a polarization. The quality of some things has gone up significantly. This is going to be the t

Like with much in the political situation, I think it's sort of a polarization. The quality of some things has gone up significantly. This is going to be the things where improvements in technologies have made improved quality easier and cheaper (and that's not just electronics—materials technology, better manufacturing, etc can do this). It's also in products where other technological improvements have made it viable for there to be independent and artisanal (or similarly small-batch high-quality) production of them. The quality of other things has declined precipitously. These are more likely to be commodities where improving quality still costs more, and the "innovation" they've done is in finding ways to make it cheaper and worse without it just always failing immediately (clothing is a prime example here). Overall, I think that if you look into any given case of a product's quality getting better or worse over the past couple of decades, you'll almost invariably find that either way it's because that's how the manufacturers can make more money.