This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.
I'd bet when you think of old stuff, you think of a singer sewing machine or a '57 chevy, stuff that withstood the test of time. well the world was full of crap then too, most of it broke and got thrown away. My toys are more than 20 years old. they are cheap plastic. they aren't even painted, just a few sucky stickers. Our microwave when i was a kid would make parts of food smoke while leaving other parts frozen solid. Consumer electronics? i think timex made it's reputation by being a slightly less crappy watch.
You name it. You can certainly find 1 example of a stellar product that lasts for years and years. There are hundreds of that products peers in the landfill.
While it's quite possible that several specific things were manufactured objectively better at some point in the past, basing judgments about the past solely on nostalgia and the few pieces that are still holding up well is not the foundation of a strong argument.
If you want to make a valid comparison, the "good old days", for the purposes of this question, are probably before the 1960s. I'm not saying that there isn't some confirmation bias going on in the OP, but it's wrong to say that products were bad in 1987, and that therefore products aren't getting worse over a longer window of time.
It was a lot less so than it is today.
My parents had a textile factory till the mid 90's - and that was still a relatively thriving industry at the 80's - as were a lot of other types of manufacturing.
For example, a lot of computers were made in western countries where as today there is probably not much in your computer that wasn't made in south east Asia, and I can say that without knowing which computer brand you are using.
So? That doesn't make the argument any less fallacious. Maybe products are a lot worse today than they were in 1989.
My point is that there's no clear and necessary reason that a comparison of 1987 product quality to 2009 product quality is a valid counterargument to the OP's assertion. The only way it works is if you intend to argue that product quality has risen (or at least stayed constant), while the percentage produced domestically has fallen. And if you're trying to argue that point, you've got to provide some evidence (something more than a quote from Spaceballs, anyway), or you're just begging the question.
The WD harddrive I bought last year crashed... My 3 year old mac needed a repair.
Yes, things run hotter, and faster, and are smaller, and whatever. But they are less reliable.
You can't rebut an argument about lack of data and selective memory with anecdotes.
I'm not a walmart fan, Old stuff just sucks. It can be fascinating and intriguing and cool, but a difference engine looses to a pentium core 2 duo. You can go buy a car for $20k right now, that is faster, safer, and more fuel efficent than anything sold in the 1970's.
time == tech. tech wins.
Edit: Not that I have examples from the 80s or 90s to compare with.
Keep in mind that I won't even wear a watch because I don't like dangly things, so I won't even pretend to understand what sorts of people go for the typical sorts of luxury item.
1 you can just dial a number, you keep a hardcopy list of phone numbers of common contacts 2 phones get the ability to show caller ID, just the number, not any associated name 3 as part of becoming portable, phones include a simple contact list showing names and numbers that you can select to dial 4 the contact list is used, along with caller ID functionality, to show the name of the caller 5 the contact list gets the ability to store address book style information also, which is not directly related to any other feature of the device (the phone). 6 the contact list is maintained portably outside the device, allowing integration with additional services 7 the phone gains the ability to communicate via IM 8 the contact list is used to store unified information for all contacts, IM and phone, and not have separate lists independently in each phone feature.
At any earlier stage, the later stages seem like luxuries until the majority of devices have that feature; then it's not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. Who's going to buy a smart phone these days that doesn't have some kind of unified contact list? Not having it would be a major hindrance, but lack of hindrance, utility, doesn't make it a luxury or not.
There's a pop culture definition of luxury, as you point out, like dangly watches, that serve no purpose other than to show off. That's the most baroque kind of luxury. There's also a more pragmatic, utilitarian luxury that is not absolute but changes based on the market and availability. Few people would consider the utility of an indoor outhouse to be a luxury, despite the fact that its main purpose is also served by an outdoor outhouse.