[hinkley]

I was just talking today to someone about how they don't like food from a certain global coffee chain anymore because their food has gotten kinda crappy.

Shrinkflation generally means same price for less product (grams, fluid ounces), but enshitification by slowly decreasing the quality of the ingredients is also a problem.

Do we put that under the shrinkflation umbrella or track it as a separate problem? Since they are both unwanted solutions to the same problem, seems like they should be kept together (to avoid a Goodhart's Law fiasco)

I recall eating an Oreo after fifteen years of not having one. At first I just thought I'd forgotten what they actually tasted like, but the more I thought about it, the more I could see a long chain of focus groups asking customers if cookie A and cookie B taste the same, if one tastes better, and slowly changing the formula to only alienate 0.2% of the customers each time until one day I wander up and find I'm part of the 10% they've cumulatively alienated.

See also how only some of us can taste certain artificial sweeteners as sugary toxic waste instead of sugar (saccharin tastes to me like drinking soda after licking a 9 volt battery)

[cogman10]

Just one more factor to consider, some ingredients are no longer available.

Trans fats are a good example of this. They used to be the prime replacement for saturated fats. Now, in the US, they are effectively banned.

This hit oreos. [1]

[1] https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2006/01/02/manufacturers-tri...

[hinkley]

Fair point. Were oreos always palm oil or were they lard back in the day?

The fracking industry has made guar gum too expensive to use as a food emulsifier. I know someone who reacts to xanthan gum (which has all but replaced guar) and she's not a happy camper, because it's in fucking everything.

[smnrchrds]

> Were oreos always palm oil or were they lard back in the day?

They did use lard till mid 90s.

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2008/02/getting-lard-out-ko...

[skyyler]

No, they were partially hydrogenated soybean oil back in the day.

Palm oil is thick at room temp, like partially hydrogenated oils are.

[aequitas]

> but enshitification by slowly decreasing the quality of the ingredients is also a problem.

Every time you see a package with “new and improved recipe” you can bet it only improved their margins by using cheaper ingredients, not the actual taste.

[amelius]

How is that possible if the rock solid theory underlying the free market promises us better products? /s

[shaftoe]

Actually, free markets do lead to better products. But they cost more than the worse products.

Look at coffee. The gradual shift from Arabica to more Robusta beans over a generation. Each year, an imperceptible shift was taken that, over decades, lead to coffee that tastes terrible. Opening the door for companies like Starbucks and a ton of gourmet roasters to compete.

But properly roasted, single origin coffee costs more than Chock-full-o'nuts. So you have options.

[hinkley]

I react poorly to some coffees and not others. I've been told by people who claim to know that some people can't stomach Robusta as well as they can Arabica. And I'll be damned if I know how to track which one I'm actually getting.

I've surrendered and just drink tea and chai now.

[amelius]

The only thing that Starbucks did for coffee was that children now also love to drink it.

In fact their coffee doesn't taste like coffee, but more like mocha/hazelnut ice cream.

[noirbot]

Are you talking about their black coffee? Or their other sorts of drinks that are often less than 50% actual coffee? Because if anything, the usual complaint about literal coffee at Starbucks from people who like coffee is it tastes too much like coffee, in the sense of being over-roasted and uninteresting. Even their blonde roast is still at best a medium roast at any other modern roaster.

[hinkley]

The thing that surprised me about burnt coffee beans is that people assume that the heavier the taste the more caffeine is there and that’s not true of over-roasting. It’s less available caffeine, not more. So it tastes terrible for no practical reason.

[Retric]

Today’s Starbucks is well removed from its origins. Starbucks was never great coffee, but I’ve heard it started out pretty decent.

Much like how McDonalds, KFC, etc started by making decent food so did Starbucks. Add 40+ years of optimizing for the bottom line and the average person’s pallet and you get a very different product.

[bobthepanda]

Anecdotally I believe McDonald’s actually does very well on blind taste tests.

[hinkley]

I am a bitter taster. It took me years of having chocolate in my coffee to work up to a latte. And even then I tended to adulterate it with hazelnut.

Cold brew is better, but not as much as afficionadoes sold me on. I can still taste the bitters.

[IIsi50MHz]

This. And I'll also add that until I was required to try each variation of a certain coffee for a job prior bring it to stores, I was convinced there was no such thing as coffee that's not bitter. All coffee I'd had before tasted like chewing on aspirin[1].

For the job, there were five "espresso style" variants[2]. Although the "black no sugar" was too intense or me, none of them were bitter. I could make them bitter if I left one open too long or by heating one and letting it cool. There are only three variants now, and I miss the the discontinued "black lightly sweet" and "mochachino".

I've since experimented with making cold brew, servedhot or cold, with a little potassium bicarbonate. I've also tried some ready-made cold brews and lighter roasts. Darker roasts taste more burnt to me. Robusto is unsuitable. Arabica is better, especially if it has a good proportion of Kona in it. If it doesn't specifiy how much Kona, assume it's not enough to make a difference. I haven't tried pure Kona, even while in Hawai'i, because price.

[1] This was not planned. I was mistakenly given regular tablets instead of children's chewable…more than once, by different people. Not a recommended experience.

[2] I'm told Italy made them stop calling it that, because of some legal definition of what constitutes espresso.

[Gud]

"better" doesn't necessarily mean higher quality. It can mean faster delivery, cheaper, lighter, etc. Many parameters goes into better.

[amelius]

Yet every time I see a product advertised with "new and improved recipe", I can rarely tell along which axes it has actually improved. Usually I want the old product back.

[hinkley]

They didn't say who the recipe was improved for...

[shostack]

"Amazon's Choice" comes to mind, though at least they are a bit more direct in the wording of it in terms of whom it benefits.

[amelius]

> Do we put that under the shrinkflation umbrella

No we call it just that, enshittification.

[krapp]

>No we call it just that, enshittification.

I'll be glad when this juvenile meme finally passes out of Hacker News' system.

[hinkley]

It's basically 'race to the bottom' but that term is not very inspirational. It's not evoking any kind of reaction in the masses.

[krapp]

Neither is "enshittification." Only HN and some tech bloggers even use it as far as I know, and mostly just to be able to imply something is "turning into shit" while pretending to use a precise term of art. But it isn't, it's a poop joke.

[Cincinnati2]

I agree with Krapp.

[hinkley]

I mean, how can I argue with krapp about shit? I’m out of my depth clearly.

[londonReed]

I'll do my best to keep it going, unless you have a better term. Enshittification clearly communicates the point trying to be made.

[zerd]

I've been buying the exact same pair of boxers for years. This year I noticed that they were actually smaller, by almost an inch. Elastic band is smaller and the actual length, so it started chafing. Shrinkflation even on clothes.

[pcthrowaway]

Heh.. I'd like to blame my boxers getting tighter on the same thing but I'm pretty sure it's just my waistline that's grown

[hinkley]

When Levi’s moved to Mexico it wasn’t that the sizes got smaller, it was that they got inconsistent. Before I started shopping around for more responsible brands, I enjoyed the privilege of being able to walk into a department store and simply buy jeans based on the label. No dressing room. After I had three pairs of the same sized jeans that varied from uncomfortable to comfortable. Tolerances matter.

[pnt12]

I've heart the term "skimoflation". There have been posts on HN about it.

[_sys49152]

my sensory skills are on point. its beyond infuriating when i notice a change in a food or drink product, hop online and search for the others with the pitchforks to join in with - only to find crickets.wav.