AddyShadows said:
Dry 24/7s are like, the single most absorbent diaper I've ever tried in my experience anyways, though I've heard their quality has been going down, so it's entirely possible that since the last time I had them they're just suck now.
The ones I have are a little old so they may be the ones before a supposed "cheapening" of the product. But it seems to be more of a "feature creep" in this market. Years ago we had bambino (classico only), ATN, Dry24/7, and Xplus as our "best available options". Times have changed, and while a lot of the "medical grade" diapers have seemed to slip a bit over the years, there's been a
huge proliferation of ABDL-targeted products, with a whole
list of diapers that are better than we used to have access to.
I can specifically remember (back in 2009 or so?) when bambino (their ONLY diaper, what's now called the "classico") was the best on the market, closely followed by 247 and xplus. THOSE were the diapers you'd wear when you wanted/needed maximum capacity or thickest diaper. Very little has changed with these diapers, but look now. I consider all three of them to just be "moderate capacity", and anytime I've worn them overnight when I shouldn't have, like on a weekend or after drinking more than average on a weekday, I've had to get up and change by 4am because I'm starting to leak. The diapers haven't gotten worse, my needs have just increased. And at the same time, the "bar' has been raised by companies like Rearz, ABUniverse, Tykables, and others. Now if I want heavy protection overnight I've got a whole list of diapers to choose from. Just look at ABU... a little paws or simple would serve me better than a teddy, (and is probably about on par with a bellissimo) but even then I could grab a peekabu for a whole new level of performance that Bambino can't touch.
What we got used to being the best simply got outclassed by the newcomers. They failed to innovate, and have become worse. Not because their products have changed, but because they've
failed to change. Unless you're in a market where all the innovation has mostly been figured out, you have to keep changing, keep improving your products to keep up with existing and especially with NEW competition. New players are always going to be using innovation to create a niche for themselves in the market. If you're an established brand and decide to rest on your laurels and stock-option that money instead of using some of it for R&D, the market is going to move on and leave you behind. Compare for example confidry, bambino, and tykables. One almost never innovates, one only infrequently innovates, and the third is introducing new and improved products on a regular basis. And it shows.
Of course not everyone is just improving their designs. A lot of the innovation has been in appearance, like ABU's choice of space/simple/paws, same diaper with a different look. Bambino started that trend years ago with their classico/bianco/teddy diversity. Rearz does that more than anyone else though, they've got close to a dozen diapers based on their inspire and inspire+incontrol models, and regularly make "limited runs" of new designs.
One thing I really like though is how individual companies are offering a variety of features. It used to be that if you wanted something like velcro, waist elastic, single tapes, or retape panels you had little to no choice. You had to go with one product, from one company. NOW, we have so much choice it's mind-blowing.
