Comment by al_borland

Expectations of society have changed. This cannot be discounted.

That old furniture was also expensive. A family would save up and buy a piece, use it their whole life, and often pass it on to children or other family members.

These days, with IKEA, Wayfair, etc, people throw out and get all new furniture every time they move, or even just to refresh a space. They do this because the furniture is cheap. If they saved up for a year to buy a kitchen table, it would be used for a long time and not get discarded and replaced along with fashion trends in home decor.

The high quality stuff is still out there, it’s just that most people don’t want to pay for it, as we don’t see furniture as an investment anymore.

People seem to have no problem paying $1,000 for a phone that they’ll replace in 2-3 years, yet they won’t spend $4,000 on a kitchen table that will be used 3+ times per day by the whole family for 50 years.