The soups haven't changed. We have. Campbell's to me (at least the small canned condensed soups) seems pretty much the same as in my 60s childhood.

Campbell's basic soups haven't kept up with consumer preferences. For instance I used to like the beef vegetable soup but today it seems thin and unsatisfying. So I've changed, it's pretty much the same stuff. Maybe more bioengineered.

The Chunky soups are a response to consumer preferences.

If Campbell's is "f*cking poor people's shit", I have no idea what middle class or affluent people eat for soup.

As far as Campbell's being uniquely terrible, I can name other brands that have had a much worse trajectory and have shrinkflated or gone crazy with synthetic garbage. Campbell's IMO has held a line on quality fairly well over the decades.

One example is Marie Calendar's "anything". Their pot pies are OK but almost every other selection is crap. Banquet was always bad but it's even worse now. Another example is Totino's pizza rolls. I just made a stromboli tonight for our dinner, because I wanted that flavor profile in something decent, and the store bought pizza rolls have a flavorless orange filling that tastes barely like pizza.

I'd give Campbell's a solid B+ for resisting enshittification, actually. It looks like stores are dumping their inventories... might find some deals.