When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.
He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.
“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.
About four years ago we got our kid a used imported Japanese schoolboy backpack. It’s still in daily use, and all his friends have to get new ones every year because the pieces of shit all fall apart.
Edit: they’re called randoseru and they’re perfect