The decline in quality manufacturing, combined with a lack of consumer education, has led consumers to lower their expectations because they don't know what truly high-quality clothing and footwear look or feel like. If you buy full-grain leather shoes with welted construction, it's not unusual for them to last not just ten years, but twenty, thirty, or sometimes even forty, as long as the owner knows how to care for them properly. That's because full-grain leather gets better, not worse, with time, unlike its corrected-grain counterparts. When the soles wear down, you can take them to a quality cobbler or bring them back to the original manufacturer and have the soles replaced. The leather insole also takes on the shape of your foot, so they feel comfortable. Since the uppers only look better with age and you can reliably replace the soles once they wear down, you will both want to repair your shoes and be able to. This is different from lower-quality shoes — trendy shoes, badly made shoes, glued shoes — which look worse with time and are meant to be thrown away after a few years. Of course, longevity has its limits, as your body naturally changes over time. As you age, your feet flatten and widen. This process speeds up if you run regularly. Plus, your style may change over time, so the style you bought twenty years ago may no longer suit your wardrobe. However, the shoes below are 25 years old. This is not unusual for this type of construction. Often see people on here promote certain shoes: "here's a cheaper version of this expensive designer brand" or "here's a popular classic." If they are not explaining how the shoes are made, there's no reason to assume the shoes will last a long time. If you want shoes to last a long time, you will want to look into the dimensions I wrote about in my original post, which is what this person below is replying to.