The Hustle has an entire article on toilet paper shrinkflation that confirms all of your suspicions with historical evidence. (They even went to eBay to get some of the old stuff!) The rolls got smaller and lighter. The number of sheets dropped. The individual sheets each got a bit narrower. The price per square foot got higher. The rolls got so small they had to start calling them double rolls (that were smaller than the original single rolls!), and now we’ve reached “Mega XL” and “Super Mega”…
Of course, not all brands are the same. The folks on the Slickdeals forum seem to use the Costco Kirkland Signature cost per square foot as the benchmark ($0.0133/sf). As with index funds, I guess the easiest way to get a fair deal is just to simply buy the low-cost benchmark. ? ?