You've got a point. I wonder if there's a good name for the cognitive bias that is captured by the joke, "Everything has always been getting worse." I have a pet theory re why this bias is so common: having been part of something before other people joined it is valuable identity currency. It makes you feel special and better. Best of all, it can never depreciate. Some things do get worse, but the discourse around it needs to be discounted – pretty sharply, I think – for this bias.

But it's kind of fun to see an HN metathread of the sackcloth and ashes genre in which the majority of commenters are being so sanguine.