History Main / TheyDontMakeThemLikeTheyUsedTo

* In former USSR, there's quite an amount of nostalgy about Soviet industrial goods which were renowned for their ''extreme'' durability and reliability. It wasn't uncommon for an off-the-shelf appliance to stay on duty for ''decades'' and be passed between generations. A large number of them are still in use today, 25 years after TheGreatPoliticalMessUp, and it's not a miracle (though still rare) to see, say, a fridge or a vacuum cleaner that's ''half a century'' old and has retained almost all the original parts. They do require occasional maintenance, yet since they've been built with simplicity and repairability in mind, the repair can be done with common tools and consumables. Spares ''are'' a problem, but custom parts are the minority and typically last the longest, and in the worst case, a broken piece can typically be reinforced with available materials or outright made from them anew without any industrial-grade equipment. The downside is their durability and repairability comes at the cost of performance. In comparison to modern equipment, Soviet goods are bulky, heavy, power-hungry, inefficient, technically obsolete and severely lacking in the aesthetic department (though [[Retraux this is a matter of taste]]) and ergonomics. These characteristics have given birth to many a joke (e.g.: "American scientists have 10 times as much equipment as ours, but each piece of our equipment is 10 times as much!"). Household appliances typically end up on {{Dacha}}s where everyday efficiency and ergonomics are less of a requirement, and "good" stuff can quickly degrade from adverse conditions or be stolen by winter-time thieves which dachas are largely defenseless against. To summarize, many who had experience with Soviet equipment are nostalgic about it, but few would actually trade a modern piece for one of those.

* Implied in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' when Marty suggests landing on Biff's car to cripple it.

* Implied in ''Film/BackToTheFuture II'' when Marty suggests landing on Biff's car to cripple it.

->''"There is an old Jaffa saying, General Hammond: 'They do not build them as they once did.'"''

->''There is an old Jaffa saying, General Hammond: 'They do not build them as they once did.'''

** And in the climax of the 1989 ''Film/{{Batman}}'' film, the hero clings on the edge of an unstable cathedral ledge, while Joker stomps out the bricks around him yelling "They don't make them like they used to, eh, Batsy?!"

** And in the climax of the ''Film/Batman1989'' film, the hero clings on the edge of an unstable cathedral ledge, while Joker stomps out the bricks around him yelling "They don't make them like they used to, eh, Batsy?!"

** And in the climax of the ''Batman1989'' film, the hero clings on the edge of an unstable cathedral ledge, while Joker stomps out the bricks around him yelling "They don't make them like they used to, eh, Batsy?!"

* This pretty well sums up the [[TheEmpire Imperium's]] entire philosophy regarding technology in TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}. They know that a radical new invention could have been inspired by a Chaos God, and tech based on it could carry some of the extremely unpleasant taint. It is also unquestionably true, most of their technology is technically LostTechnology reproduced by wrote with the best stuff a complete mystery.

** Note that it is thoroughly justified in the case of Keyboard, the old popular keyboard that was made with springs and individual switches for each key; they were heavy, durable as hell and are literally solid enough to bash over someone's head while remaining functional afterwards. Not surprisingly, these keyboards can survive an ''immense'' amount of abuse and can last decades of typing by the most prolific typist without losing effectiveness. Fast forward to modern day however, where keyboards are made of the much cheaper but unfortunately much more fragile membrane, which can fall apart or loses tactile feedback in less than a year of heavy use. Ironically, there's a very strong trend to return to these old type mechanical keyboards (though not the spring types) in the gaming community, taking advantage of their inherent durability to endure the massive abuse. Several manufacturers that cater to gamers have produced their own modern take on mechanical keyboards for the sake of feedback and rapid key presses. This can be a double-edged sword, as keyboards in this style can suffer in ergonomics and potentially raise stress on the hands.[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury]]

** Note that it is thoroughly justified in the case of Keyboard, the old popular keyboard were made with spring and individual switch for each key, they were heavy, durable as hell and literally are solid enough to bash someone's head over while remaining functional afterwards, not surprisingly these keyboards can survive IMMENSE amount of abuse and can last decades of typing by the most prolific typist without losing effectiveness. Fast forward to modern day however where keyboards are made of the much cheaper but unfortunately much more fragile membrane, where keyboards can fall apart or loses tactile feedback in less than a year of heavy use. Ironically today, there's a very strong trend to return to these old type mechanical keyboards (though not the spring types) in the gaming community, taking advantage of their inherent durability to endure the massive abuse.

*** Have fun with that. Click style keyboards were shown to cause repetitive stress injury at far higher rates than keyboards with less force feedback.

* This pretty well sums up the [[TheEmpire Imperium's]] entire philosophy regarding technology in TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}. They know that a radical new invention could have been inspired by a Chaos God, and tech based on it could carry some of the extremely unpleasant taint.

-->''There is an old Jaffa saying, General Hammond: 'They do not build them as they once did.'''\\
--Teal'c, ''Series/StargateSG1''

'''They Don't Make Them Like They Used To''' is a form of [[NostalgiaFilter nostalgia]], that prefers the more durable aspects of older designs over the more complex and fragile newer designs. The simple fact is that cheaply made items fall apart before they get old.

* Cassettes, both audio and video, went through this over time. Those made in the 1980's were heavier, more durable, and had clearer picture/sound than the ones coming out in the late 90's and early 2000's, around the time DVD began to take over (whose advertising made it seem like VHS tapes were ''always'' cheaply made with bad sound/video quality). Needless to say it's actually a lot harder to ruin a cassette than it is to ruin a CD or DVD.

* Cassettes, both audio and video, went through this over time. Those made in the 1980's were heavier, more durable, and had clearer picture/sound than the ones coming out in the late 90's and early 2000's, around the time DVD began to take over (whose advertising made it seem like VHS tapes were ''always'' cheaply made with bad sound/video quality).

* One death scene of SpaceAce is during the part where Dexter turns into Ace; pressing the fire button at one part of the Space Dogs scene will cause Ace to try to shoot his target, only to cause half of the space station to blow up.

* The TropeNamer of this trope is Billie Jo Spears country song '''57 Chevrolet'', a tribute song for that model. They are today considered highly classic and collectable amongst the automobile enthusiasts.

* Ford's Panther Platform (Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, Town Car) is a major beneficiary of this sort of thinking. The basic design dates back to 1979, and the perimeter-frame, RWD V8 design wasn't much beyond the state of the art of the 1950s. They are, indeed, extremely durable cars, but also handle poorly and are rather cramped for something the size of a limo. Interestingly, the similarly-antiquated GM competitor, the Chevrolet Caprice, was discontinued in 1996 but is widely considered by police and taxi drivers to be the superior car. Indeed, they don't make them like they used to.

* High Fructose Corn Syrup replacing cane sugar in soft drinks and many other sweetened products, such as fruit juices and candies. Since this is [[{{Eagleland}} exclusive to the United States]] it has also become a common source of CulturalCringe.

Often older things are over-engineered, which causes them to last longer and endure hard usage. A business that has been producing an item for awhile starts to find ways to either reduce cost, or improve some other important attribute (such as reducing weight), often at the cost of reducing durability. This applies to everything from microwaves to things as mundane as shoes. (Shoes made with older technology cost more, but they also tend to last longer).

Cars are another example. Older cars were made under the theory that, in a crash, the car should show as little damage as possible, and hence were made of thick steel; the body panels were often not load-bearing and could be easily removed. Newer cars (i.e. engineered in the last 30 years) are designed to simply fall apart in a crash, keeping the occupants safe by allowing the car's frame to absorb the energy involved in a crash by crumpling and going to pieces instead of transmitting the energy to the occupants. Of course, this does destroy the car. There are also maintenance issues. It used to be the "tree-shade mechanic" could fix an engine with basic tools, but newer cars require complicated and expensive tools. On the other hand, these efficiencies and cost reductions have allowed more people to afford a car; the U.S. population increased by 55% from 1960 to 2000, but the number of licensed drivers more than doubled over the same period.

This also highlights the selective enforcement of this and other NostalgiaFilter-related tropes. Though there are far more cars on the road, and far more miles driven, fatalities have remained level (fatalities-per-mile in the U.S. have decreased by 75% over the last 50 years). This is ignored, while the more easily-damaged vehicle is seen as evidence that '''They Don't Make Them Like They Used To'''.

Another housing example is the old breezeway. Older houses were built with a breezeway to take advantage of prevailing winds to cool the house in the summer. Newer houses just have air conditioning and no such breezeway. Guess which is cooler if the power goes out in the summer?

'''They Don't Make Them Like They Used To''' is a form of [[NostalgiaFilter nostalgia]], that prefers the simpler, and more durable aspects of older designs over the more complex and fragile newer designs. The simple fact is that cheaply made items fall apart before they get old.

Houses are another good example. Sometimes after a major disaster- like a hurricane- all the houses built before a certain date will have survived with minor damage, while newer houses are destroyed. This shows something of a selection bias; the less durable houses of that era are already gone, leaving only the most durable to face the hurricane. Due to the evolution of building codes, sometimes the newest houses also survive. In flooding situations, barring ''really'' record-breaking floods a rather similar selection process will take place, though in this case it's more a case of ''where'' the houses are built; the locations least at risk from flooding will be built upon first, with development spreading into more vulnerable areas as the town grows.