20+ Things That Used to Be Good — Until People Ruined Them

HGTV made a lot of people think that house flipping was something amazing that anyone could do. Moreover, it convinced people that such things were actually good for the housing market. Unfortunately, there’s a lot to be ruined here.

Of course, that kind of implies that house flipping was actually good at some point, and maybe it was. But nowadays, people have driven the concept into the ground, and it just doesn’t hold the appeal that it used to.

OK, so it’s kind of hipster and elitist to assume that people don’t appreciate art just because they’re taking selfies with it, but we can see why someone who enjoys art museums would find it annoying to have people taking selfies next to the art all the time.

After all, it’s kind of hard to see and appreciate it with all of those people around, especially when they’re posing in front of it and making silly faces. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is these days with many museum visitors.

In the past, the notion of true crime was fairly niche — not many people wanted to learn about serial killers and the like. So, it was kind of an interesting hobby to have. But ultimately, big media realized how profitable it could be.

True crime may not have been ruined per se, but it has definitely lost some of what used to make it special, just by the merit of how common it is now. That’s just what happens when something becomes popular, in the long run.

Honestly, we didn’t even know what Manhattanhenge was prior to writing this article. But apparently, it’s a pretty big deal in New York City, and it used to be better before it become so popular. Well, everything that has some special appeal becomes kind of stale when everyone knows about it.

The moment a landmark that’s actually interesting becomes more tourist trap than a local oddity, well, is the moment it’s ruined for many people. It just doesn’t have the same beauty when everyone knows about it and treats it that way.

Ultimately, children’s books are written by adults. Preferably, they should be written by adults that actually care about children and want to impart some sort of meaningful message or idea to them. In the old days, it often was like that.

Unfortunately, it’s been ruined by too many people who don’t really have a passion for the craft trying to write such a book. It’s especially silly when a celebrity that has no real history with that kind of thing makes an attempt.

Alright, in this particular scenario, we’re not actually sure if this person knows what they’re talking about. Honestly, there were plenty of ads on the internet even a decade ago — they just took on a different form.

That said, we can acknowledge that there are a ton of ads on the internet right now too. Have you tried to use YouTube for free lately? You can’t even go 30 minutes without getting smacked with ads! We know they have to make money, but geez!

YouTube has existed for a long time — it’s one of the staples of the modern internet. However, many people believe it has been ruined over the years, and that it doesn’t hold a candle to how impressive and likable it used to be.

It’s true that YouTube has been heavily affected by monetization and algorithms, so much so that even content creators are frustrated with it. But, was it really better in the days of old? Like many things, it probably was, at least in some regard.

Remember when Netflix was fresh and new, and pretty much the only service that had any claim to streaming at all? Those were the days, right? Unfortunately, big corporations saw an opportunity to make money, and now practically everyone has a streaming service of their own.

If you want to watch everything you like, there’s almost no chance you will be able to do so with just one streaming service. It has been ruined by pure saturation. No one wants to pay that much for their shows!

Flying drones used to be a hobby reserved for people with a lot of money and a lot of dedication and passion. The high barrier to entry meant most of the hobbyists were quite serious. But, now that drones are cheaper, almost anyone can fly a drone.

It’s a pretty popular hobby nowadays, which comes with its own risks. Needless to say, flying drones has likely been ruined by the sheer number of people that are involved with it these days.

Festivals should be fun, and even today, they often still are. But at the same time, there’s something to be said about how crowded and expensive they are these days. As the world population continues to grow and the economy shifts, said things get worse.

Are festivals ruined in their entirety? Not by a long shot, but we can definitely see why some people don’t have any desire to go to them these days. As you get older, the drive to do that kind of stuff often fades away.

Apparently, driving to work used to be something that only a few people did, and that helped them beat the typical morning traffic. But like with most life hacks, as more and more people caught on, it stopped being a useful thing to do and was ruined.

After all, if everyone starts driving to work early, then the peak traffic hour just moves. Maybe this person should start driving to work later? Would that kind of reverse thinking work, or just make them late?

The Appalachian Trail used to be something reserved for only the most serious of hikers. And as with many niche hobbies, that allowed it to remain very professional and mindful. But, as walking the trail became more popular, that was ruined.

Some humans don’t even know how to throw away their trash when they have a garbage can right next to them, so it’s no surprise that they won’t keep their trash under wraps while out in nature. It’s just unfortunate that this is the case.

It’s kind of weird how surging popularity often makes things worse, right? You would think that the more popular something is, the better it gets, but it actually seems to be the opposite. This story of a haunted house is a prime example.

We suppose this is what they mean when they say “too much of a good thing.” Whether it’s a fandom becoming more toxic due to the sheer variety of people or a haunted house getting too popular for its own good, it’s a common trend.

Thrift shopping used to be pretty niche, and that’s why you could find things at low prices. As the idea became more popular, thrift shop owners realized there was a lot of money to be made, so they started charging more to meet the new customer base.

We can’t really blame them for this — everyone has to make a living, after all. Needless to say, almost anyone would capitalize on the ability to make more money with their business if they could. It’s only natural to do that.

Cooking shows are a dime a dozen today, there’s no doubt about that. Regardless of what streaming service you use, you can find tons of them there. They used to be a lot more niche, and placed a real focus on skill and cooking as well.

Nowadays, most of them are silly and involve a bunch of weird gimmicks that are barely about cooking half the time. At this point, some people are of the mind that cooking shows have been ruined, and we can’t disagree.

Long ago, AirBnB was actually something that people could look forward to and enjoy. But, that perception of Airbnb doesn’t really exist anymore. Nowadays, most people would definitely prefer to just stay at a hotel instead.

Considering how expensive AirBnB can be and some of the crazy rules that you’re made to follow, it’s no wonder that a bunch of people have no interest at all in using it. At least you can pretty much do what you want at a hotel, right?

Bidding on storage lockers started as a pretty niche hobby, as most hobbies usually do. But of course, it gained some traction and ultimately ended up with a lot more interested people. Needless to say, that soured the experience for some.

We’re sure you can still find some cool storage locker bidding every once in a while, but there’s probably a lot of worthless crap out there too. Then again, it was probably like that before to some extent too, right?

The whole notion of craft fairs should be whimsical and fun. It’s a bunch of people showing off personal arts and crafts — how cool is that? Unfortunately, when companies move in on the idea, it becomes a lot less fun and gets ruined.

For instance, MLMs love to try and make a sale in these scenarios, which totally sucks. Nobody likes these pyramid scheme shenanigans in the first place, but it stinks that they even manage to ruin craft fairs for a bunch of people.

Remember the old days when you could purchase something outright and just have it forever? We sure do. Nowadays, it seems like there’s no choice but to subscribe to almost everything if you want to actually keep using it. It’s super annoying.

We understand why some things have to be subscriptions, otherwise, there wouldn’t actually be a profit for the people providing the service. But still, it’s kind of annoying to have to deal with subscriptions seemingly everywhere.

Farmer’s markets should be great for everyone involved, but as they became less local and homegrown and started attracting bigger businesses, the concept mostly got ruined. It’s a shame because it would be nice to be able to patronize local farmers only.

Have they been ruined completely? Not really, but at the same time, they definitely aren’t as fun as they used to be, and that’s a great shame in and of itself. It makes it a lot harder to support your local farmers like this.

Frankly, we’re not sure we agree with this assessment. Admittedly, Etsy is probably not quite as laser-focused on crafts as it used to be, and you can definitely find a few people out there who treat it like an alternative to eBay.

But at the same time, Etsy still has a ton of products actually handmade by people, and you can find all sorts of neat things on the site. So all in all, we don’t think it has been ruined. It’s just a bit broader than it used to be.

One would think it would be pretty hard to ruin something as vast and majestic as nature, but make no mistake, humans are more than capable of doing that if they’re given enough time. Needless to say, humans have managed that over the centuries in many ways.

Thankfully, nature is robust and often has ways to bounce back over time. But even so, no one can deny that, in many places, it has become more difficult to actually enjoy nature in its purest form. Clean up after yourself, please!

Allegedly, there were people who used to think that driving was actually fun and enjoyable, at least at some point in the past. But honestly, considering how many people are on the road at one time and how many of them can’t drive at all, we feel it’s been ruined for some time.

Maybe you can still enjoy driving on some lonely country backroads, but driving around cities almost feels like a gamble with your life more than something you can actually find fun in most cases.

If you’ve ever been apple picking before, you may have found it quite enjoyable. But for a lot of people, the amount of commercialization and profit hunting that has been added to the experience over time has ruined it.

Admittedly, it’s kind of annoying to not be able to pick an apple in a quiet and pristine location when it feels like they’re trying to take your money at every turn. Most people don’t want capitalism moving in on every corner of their lives.

Could people really ruin something as broad as living in an entire country? Well, as a once quiet country gets overrun by tourists and businesses looking to capitalize on that, yeah, it’s definitely possible. Such is the case in Iceland for some people.

Of course, rising housing costs are a big problem in many countries around the world, but such things are felt more significantly in countries that were once quite isolated, and Iceland definitely fits the bill there.

We all knew that one kid in school that would ruin a good thing by tattling to the authorities. Unfortunately, some people manage to be that kind of person even as they get into college. Well, maybe this scenario isn’t exactly the same.

You have to know who you can trust before you start blabbing about your special vending machine. After all, it will be ruined if someone who talks too much learns about it and talks to the wrong people. Just like this, naturally.

This one is a little weird. Personally, we don’t think there are too many people going to college now. We think that the job market is putting too much importance on college degrees. There are many jobs out there that “require” a college degree even though they shouldn’t.

So now, people have to go to college just to get low-level jobs that shouldn’t require degrees, thus, the value of going to college has lessened significantly because it’s almost a requirement for any decent job now.

Burning Man has been around for a long time and likely still holds a special place in the heart of many people. However, many of those same people would probably agree that it has fallen from grace somewhat over the past few years.

As always, as things become more popular, they invite more people. Now, statistically speaking — the more people you have, the more likely it is that some of them will be toxic, annoying, or otherwise undesirable. That’s just how it is.

At one point, collecting items of any sort was a hobby, something you really did for fun more than anything else. But as always, people ruined it by making it more stressful and complicated than it needed to be. We all knew that one guy.

We just don’t understand the point of owning something that will never be used or appreciated — just sitting in a box due to some perceived notion of value. Some people are fine with that, but for many collectors, it’s been ruined.

Dogs could never actually be ruined, right? They’re the greatest thing to ever happen to mankind! Well, it’s less the dogs themselves and more the people that own them that “ruin” dogs for others. Ill-trained dogs are a result of their owners.

It’s a shame because, with a good owner, any dog can be an amazing companion. With a bad one, though, a dog can actually be a serious nuisance. Like most things, humans ruin it for other humans with their own behavior.

Alright, admittedly, we’re not qualified enough to speak on whether or not the idea of nurse practitioners has really been ruined. However, this person certainly seems to think so, and as best as we can tell, their argument is pretty solid.

Is it a bad thing that people can become a nurse practitioner earlier than they used to? We suppose it could be perceived as such, since that’s a field where you would want someone to have a lot of experience. We can get that.

Service animals play a huge role in the lives of people that need them. Unfortunately, many people look at the legal benefits of owning a service animal and try to take advantage of that, ruining it for those who actually have needs.

It’s kind of like people trying to take advantage of tools and policies that exist for the handicapped, thus making those things more stringent and less readily available. It just hurts the people who actually need them, which is scummy.

Some of the people making these comments might be a little too negative, honestly. Sure, there are more people making podcasts now, and not all of them are good. But, does that mean podcasts have been ruined? Not at all.

Consider that, statistically speaking, the more of something there is, the more bad stuff there’s going to be. It’s just like movies or TV — the media is so popular and so expansive that there’s bound to be some bad media out there.

Ease of access to certain tools always brings an influx of annoying people that ruin it for others. This exact phenomenon occurred with digital cameras in the past. At one point, getting access to decent photography equipment was difficult and expensive.

Eventually, it became something that almost anyone could do, and that saturation of overconfident people with little experience became real annoying real quick. Just because you have a tool doesn’t make you an expert with it.

Alright, so coupons definitely still exist and they can certainly still be used to good effect. But many of us can remember the old days when coupons gave you extraordinarily good deals, and you could really get some massive discounts.

That’s not the case as much these days. When people started abusing coupons a little too hard, grocery stores cut back on how useful they were, because it was costing them money. Such stores do have to make a profit, you know!

When one thinks of camping, they probably imagine going out to some remote part of the wilderness to spend some quality time with nature. They probably don’t envision camping right next to a bunch of other people they don’t know.

Of course, your camping experience probably has a lot to do with where you go camping and when. Still, if you were the type of person who liked to go to dedicated campsites, it may have been ruined for you by now due to crowding.

The ability to speak does not make you intelligent, nor does the ability to write. Unfortunately, a lot of people feel that they know what they’re doing just because they can write some stuff down and call it a script.

Judging by the last five years of movies and TV shows, we can definitely agree that scriptwriting has been ruined by way too many people who have no idea what they are doing. Previous eras of screenwriting were definitely better in our opinion.

Let’s be honest here — have theme parks been ruined as this guy claims, or have they always been the way he’s describing? It seems to us that theme parks have always been crowded and subject to long wait times, and that’s never not been the case.

But, maybe we missed some early era of theme parks where you didn’t have to wait that long? Either way, this person feels that theme parks have been ruined. But, we’re not sure if he’s actually right about that, all things considered.

We’re not sure how big the sneaker scene is now, and we don’t really know if it has been ruined, as this person claims. At any rate, they certainly seem convinced that it has. Is it bad that more people want to buy shoes?

Well, maybe there is some secret, elite group of people that used to buy sneakers and now they’re mad about the higher number of people getting involved in the market? That’s the basis for a mediocre thriller story of some sort.

Not to be mean, but we do have to wonder how old some of the people making these comments are. Was there a time when flying on an airline was comfortable and painless? Maybe, but certainly not anytime recently. This person must be remembering the very old days.

But today, there’s more reason to travel for a lot of people, and you can’t blame airline companies for maximizing the number of passengers in one plane. After all, jet fuel is incredibly expensive, and so is paying your staff.

In a weird way, the joy of a niche hobby can actually be ruined if it becomes too popular. After all, once everybody is doing something, it kind of becomes less special, right? And yet, popularity breeds more content and interest in the field.

It’s a bit of a weird dichotomy, but we can understand why some people — like collectors of vinyl — would be a little miffed about it. After all, it’s near and dear to their heart and that leads to a lot of passion for it.

Remember when McDonald’s had a little mini-playground for the kids, which allowed adults to eat in peace while said kids were distracted? Do you ever wonder what happened to those? Well, turns out that leaving kids unsupervised in a play area is a bad idea.

For many reasons, it likely became a health and safety concern, so the whole thing was ruined by kids. But hey, is that really surprising? After all, a lot of things are ruined by kids, even though they don’t necessarily intend to.

On one hand, we’re glad we live in an era where most people can feasibly visit sites of great historical importance in person. The ability to even have that kind of experience is pretty great, and something many people throughout history have been unable to do themselves.

And yet, the more people that visit a historical site, the less clean and maintained it often manages to be. It loses some of what makes it special, and tourists can definitely be super annoying. We get that for sure.

The unfortunate reality is that humans are gross, and many places around the world have their natural beauty ruined by our behavior and especially our tendency to litter. Laziness is the bane of all natural locations, that’s for sure.

Havasu Falls in Arizona is unfortunately no exception, according to this Redditor. It seems that even the most beautiful and pristine of locations can be ruined by humans who don’t know how to clean up after themselves.