That, and the constant increasing sense of "this is shit" everytime you buy something. eg, my car insurance renewal came in last night. At the max "sum insured", I can't buy a replacement to my current car, and they won't let me increase it beyond that max.
"New" stuff at the same price point, or second hand stuff in the price range - doesn't have the same feature set or creature comforts.
Entitlement, sure - but its so annoying. It walks right along the side of that beast called inflation, the deflation of the existing quality of things.
I hear that. We've been in Australia for 17 years and I'm only just having to throw out some of the clothes that came over from the UK with us. Nothing we've bought here has lasted much more than a couple of years, no matter how much we've spent on them or the brand they are. At one point I thought it was that Australia didn't demand the same level of quality, but worldwide brands should be the same no matter where you are, so I think it's more that the quality started dropping around the time we moved.
It's ironic that the more people try to avoid the throw away culture the more it seeps into everything you buy, even when you're trying to spend a bit more for higher quality. It's hard to find it anywhere any more. It could possibly be a sign of commercialism trying to stay afloat with both the cost of living and people's awareness of waste making them spend less.