There were a couple of very undesired side-effects that manufacturers hate because it was making the consumers angry:
1. Burning the color of clothes.
2. Irritating the skin (hand-was was very common, it still has some use cases even today).
Also there was a move around 2003-2004 to increase the concentration of automatic washer detergents, that was meant to decrease the transportation cost for manufacturers, but overuse was even riskier. I know it was done, somewhere before 2005 when I left that area of business, part of the solution was a big marketing campaign, another part was switching to liquid detergent with a measuring cup, also including a measuring cup in the package with the larger sizes. I don't know what happened later.
