But in some commodities quantity is identical with quality: a less bulky (thinner) sheet of toilet paper is qualitatively damaged. Ditto facial tissues.
Mere redction in size can also damage saltines qualitatively. Current saltines (most, perhaps all, brands) are thinner and break up more easily. They are also smaller around, & that has some qualitative dimensiosn.
But saltines, graham crackers, & Oreos have also disastrously degenerated in taste! Some years ago there was a blog on toilet paper degeneration with the slogan, They Caught Us With Our Pants Down. That will work as a general label for the matters discussed in this post. Lorna Doone shortbread has also lost flavor.
Hydrox cookies, some 10 years older than Oreos, stopped production in 1998 because everyone thought they were imitations of Oreos, though originally the opposite was the case. Be that as it may, in the last year at some point several _new_ 'oreos' appeared: they are the same shrunken size but they have the original flavor that disappeared from Oreos a year or so ago. Schnucks now has its own brand of 'oreos,' and they are satisfactory.
The ersatz sheet/quilt now on all hotel beds may be explicable as labor saving; I was in a hotel room recently when the maid came, & it took her seconds to pull the bed covers together. But the other changes mentioned in this post seem to have some other motive. They must save _some_ pennies in materials????
Economists really ought to study this widespread phenomenon. Some of the changes must save
Is there any basis for the following speculation?. Financial firms dealing in billions probably pay attention to minute differences in the return on various securities. Would this make worthwhile the minute savings brought about by stupid hotel bed covers and flavorless oreos?
Carrol