This is the correct answer. These “things are getting worse” terms are on the right track, but they don’t describe why things are getting worse.

Class-based systems like feudalism and capitalism have overarching rising and falling phases, and in the late phases, exploitation of our labor increases drastically as the ruling classes fight over a declining surplus. This has rippling effects to every other aspect of society, from how hard we’re forced to work, to the degradation of media, art, politics, etc.