The internet and big feet.
No, this is not a post about foot fetishes.
It's about the fact that for people with anything over a size 12, finding shoes pre-internet was a nightmare. As someone who wears a 13 wide, I felt it. And I can't imagine what people who wear something larger like a 15 had to deal with. It was bad enough in things like sneakers, but then when you start getting into any "specialty" shoe like golf shoes... Good effing luck.
It's not that shoe companies couldn't make them. And it's not that there weren't enough people in the US with big feet to justify it. It's that the density of those people with big feet was spread so thinly that it didn't make sense for shoemakers to make a lot of those sizes, nor for shoe stores to carry them.
But now, it's different. I can go to a shoe store, and while they still won't have a lot of options in stock in my size, I can evaluate which shoes I like visually. Then I can go home and order a pair, easily, in my size. The shoemakers only have to fulfill out of a single stock location, so they can service the entire country of big-footed people from one place. And if they arrive and don't fit right... I can just send them back.
When some people gripe about how things keep getting worse, this is one area that I can say that a formerly underserved community now has ample access to something as pedestrian--pun intended--as shoes that fit properly.