link to original reddit post by /u/mrpenguin_86
In my short lifetime, capitalism has transformed things so much! When I was a kid, you bought from the local retailers from the same handful of brand names all selling crap made in China. You didn't know the mark up and just assumed that's how the world worked.
I look at things like eBay, Amazon, and really the internet now and am amazed at what we have. We can buy the same shit from China from the same manufacturers for the big brands that were the world when I was a kid, except you pay 1/2 as much and get the same meh quality as the big boys.
If I wanted some parts for my grill, I had to go to home depot and buy the name brand grill parts. Now, I can just go on Amazon and buy a chinese knock off, and these days, they're about the same meh quality as the name brands. Same with my car! I need parts? Fuck the Audi dealership and their $35 pieces of plastic; I can get the same thing on ebay (and honestly, the failure rate in my experience has been the same as buying from US name brand auto part dealers).
I just finished up selling a book on Amazon that I would probably have a hell of a time selling in the US (unless I wanted to get pennies on the dollar at a used book store). Couldn't imagine this when I was a kid.
God, I love capitalism.