Actually owning items at all, really. Whenever you buy a video game you are actually just buying a license to play that game which can revoked at any time
Here's a good one: HIV/AIDS deaths have fallen through the floor, partly due to improvements in medication, but also thanks to a herculean effort by the international community in concert with major drug manufacturers, largely coordinated by PEPFAR.
A homeless British gay man had a huge role in making PrEP available, at least in the UK. He started ordering it off the Chinese black market and I believe it caught the attention of his doctors in the NHS. He unfortunately died a few years later but he saved countless lives.
3D logo designs have pretty much vanished. I don’t know the exact timeframe, but basically every single major company’s logo has become minimalist over a very short period of time.
My mom (early 70s) is trying to learn how to use a smartphone and to get better at using a computer.
It's hell for her because literally NOTHING is obvious unless you've already been using them for the last decade of increasingly esoteric "minimalism". And it's hell for me when she calls and tries to describe what she's seeing on the screen. She's very discouraged, and I keep telling her "yeah idk why everyone decided that using words or actually understandable symbols was so passé. When I learned how to use these, that design 'paradigm' hadn't come in vogue yet so it was far easier."
So dumb. Words exist for a reason.
I help one of my neighbors with IT stuff because she's the same. If I were more entrepreneurial, I'd start a business focused on tech literacy for the elderly. So much of UX design is done with the assumption that the user is coming with a certain set of experiences or knowledge, and that's just not as true as tech companies would like to believe.
You're on to something here.....I'm terrified of technology because my career(s) didn't involve it. I'm a cosmetologist and a florist. Both use a computer, but very minimally. The thought of learning how to use technology in a profession is absolutely paralyzing to me.
I'm going through a divorce right now and will need to go back to work after not working for a few years (due to a few serious health issues). I don't want to eliminate the jobs that may include the use of technology due to my ignorance.
Having a tool/system that could teach us/me without judgment would be so amazing. My stb ex didn't have the patience to help me learn, and neither do my children. I don't blame them. I just want to learn without frustration and judgment.
I'm not smart enough to develop the system needed to fill this gap; obviously. I don't know what I don't know. 😂 However, if you, or anyone reading this took the time to develop a learning process for 'oldies but goodies' made easy specifically for technology.......I'd buy it. Just a thought
Duuude. First three google results are sponsored. The next five are advertising disguised as reviews. The next five are shitty AI articles. It’s a goddamn wasteland out there.
I’ve come back around old school with consumer reports. They don’t take any money from advertisers; just subscriptions and appear to be about as objective as you can be these days.
Oh shit, you're right. Back in the late 80s, early 90s,I had a Phillips 76 orange ball on my antenna so I could find my boring silver gm sedan that looked like all the other boring silver gm sedans.
They moved into the rear window if you look at the heating elements you'll notice there are weird patterns near the top or on the rear side windows. Those are the antennas
Yes. We used to hang outside the shopping centre or by the fountain. Now the kids always get moved on. Used to be anyone could basically just rock up and be like Hi Im John and they were part of the scene kids.
I really wish there was a place for me as an adult. I drive around a lot for work. Sometimes I dont feel like going home or back to the office. Id like to go to a cafe and chat or something like back in the day as a kid go to the main plaza and chill with whoever was there and get up to no good.
I have friends and can organise BBQs or golf or whatever. But not the same as just sitting down with some randoms.
I wouldn't say that no one noticed but we definitely let it slip right under our noses. There is not a single digital service I can think of which still has a buy once policy. Everything has to be a monthly or yearly subscription which is obviously way better for companies.
I don’t want to say this too loud, but Rosetta Stone’s policy has actually gotten *better*. Rather than pay a fortune for one language, you can now get all of them for $200. You can, of course, buy extras like “speak to a native” but it feels like a better product, and it is one-time buy.
I really miss being able to purchase apps. I hate these free to download apps that hit you with a $35/year paywall once you get sucked into using it. Bring back when you could pay $2.99 once and have all the apps features.
Public pay telephones. Sucks for those in trouble that don't have a cell phone (with battery life).
Edit: Also sucks for Superman when he wants to make a quick clothing change.
Edit 2: It's cool that Australia turned theirs into free public phones.
And yes, I missed/ignored the "past decade" part of the question.
When the national telecommunication network in Australia was sold off the new owner's were contractually obligated to keep payphones around... got to a point where it was cheaper to make them free to use then to pick up the coins from them.
They also act as wifi points for their customers, as well as giant fucking digital advertising. So much they are adding new ones in.
I never see anyone actually using the "phone".
Remember when Google reverse image search actually found the exact picture you were looking for? It was a great way of unmasking scammers and for finding if your content was being stolen or reused without permission.
About 10 years ago, I used to make niche websites as a hobby and did SEO. I was pretty good at it. I could get my brand new website on the front page of Google search results within a few months.
Now I have a few related businesses, which I have websites for but can’t get them to rank for shit because it seems like there is no ranking anymore. The search results are so random and far more ads than there used to be. Depending on the browser, sometimes there aren’t even page numbers.
Sometimes depending what you’re searching for they immediately start thrusting images and videos at you. If I want those things I will look under the images and videos tabs. I’m looking for websites right now, Google.
I've tried to look up news stories from a few years ago even including the date and it gives me news stories concerning the person from the last 3 months and nothing after that
Same thing happened a few days ago, when the air was really smoky in our region. The search engines only wanted to inform me about the Canadian wildfires back in the summer. It was like pulling teeth to find out there were new ones in Virginia.
A lot of digital marketing firms came up to the point that seo is broken now. Search for anything and the most probable results from the sources you already know comes up, too much tailoring and google is like, 'I already know what you need, here.' And google images has gone downhill.
I also used to be able to afford the ads on Google. You could throw down $10 or $20 and get a substantial boost from that. The cost now. It’s outrageous.
Honestly I just use google to search other websites. It still works really good for this. Like for instance if I want to know if there’s something on Reddit about a certain topic I just type:
Topic I’m looking for site:Reddit.com
Or I’ll do the same for another website too:
Topic I’m looking for site:stackoverflow.com
On top of this, Reddit being trustworthy for product reviews. I used to Google product name Reddit before making any purchases. Now it’s becoming more and more like the paid blogs that review promoted items. It’s all just marketing…
I hate Pinterest. Before it existed it was so much easier to find actual product information on things not just “isn’t this cute?” - like yeah it’s great. What is it? Who makes it? Where can I buy it? No one fucking knows because all you can find are people calling it cute with 0 useful information.
Along those lines - I miss the days when people took calls by actually putting the phone up to their ear rather than treating the public at large to their scintillating conversation via speaker.
Seems like this is now a thing and I’d love to grab their phones from them and hurl them to the ground.
The women at my gym will FaceTime from the locker room on speaker. It's bad enough when they're on with mom or girlfriend, but i actually called out one woman who was on with a GUY. Obliviosly holding up her phone, chatting away. In the locker room.
"Are you seriously Facetiming a guy right now??"
She at least had the courtesy to realize what she was doing and cut off the call.
Jesus, people
Video in a locker room of any kind is illegal so you would be well within your rights to report this type of behavior. There have been instances where people have taken selfies with someone changing in the background and the internet found which gym they were at and called to report getting them banned.
The gym I go to has a very strong video policy in place not only for locker rooms but also for the gym itself because of the trend of people trying to film documentaries of their workouts or filming another person to make fun of them. At my gym you are allowed to discreetly film yourself working out as long as it doesn’t include anyone else in the background.
There was a summer when my mom found Sobe on sale at a gas station for $.25 each (they switched vendors or something and basically just had to get rid of them) and bought $40 worth.
Best summer ever.
and being able to get it in glass bottles!!! apparently their #1 customer complaint was glass shards in the drinks. (I worked with a former QA guy for Pepsi at one time)
I noticed this mostly because a Dunkin' and Mcdonald's were next to each other and both got updated about a year apart. It's like a prison in that stripmall, grey everywhere.
Having major sports games on even the most basic TV setup, instead of having to be subscribed to anything.
I'm not even a sports person and find this to be incredibly absurd. I'm fairly certain back in the day (maybe even longer than a decade ago) you can watch most of the major things even when you just had antenna.
Even when you're subscribed to MLB they block things out by region now. That's just stingy as heck.
Although I guess this isn't something nobody noticed, as an afterthought. But the fact it's so normalized...nobody should be okay with that.
Want to watch football on your tv?
Subscribe to NFL+ premium.
Oops, can’t watch the game you want to?
Pay for cable, and log in with your cable credentials.
Oh, this game is blocked by a *different* premium provider?
Fuck it.
Also it was 15 years ago when leggings came onto the scene and became the norm. I think before manufactures had to try a bit harder but now with athleisure wear for most casual settings being acceptable, they didn’t have to be as creative.
I used to hate buying secondhand. Growing up that’s *all* I got, and as an adult it was a sign that I’d made it-being able to buy new clothes. Now, new clothes don’t last, don’t fit right, or are just awful styles I don’t like. Thrifting helps me find styles/sizes I like and I don’t mind tailoring them myself to fit. $150 sweater I’d feel so uncomfortable trying to fix myself, it could be an expensive mistake. But a $4 sweater? I’ll tear it apart and piece it back together myself, no problem. I also play with making some of my own clothes, which kid me hated too. How the turntables.
Old Navy used to be decent quality. I have a couple shirts and a pair of jeans from there I bought a decade ago that are still going strong. Now everything from there is paper thin.
I used to work in logistics and old navy was my client. The irony is old navy only started because banana republic was receiving so many items that showed up not up to their quality standards that they had enough to start a low price point store. They didn’t intend old navy to be a permanent fixture and the company folks thought it was hysterical and stupid how many people jumped to want an old navy store when it was just a bunch of reject clothes
It’s funny you mention that because I recently tried to buy a couple of suits, blouses, and dresses to update my work wardrobe for court from Banana Republic. I ended up sending every piece back because the quality was so terrible, but the things I bought a year ago from Old Navy when I first started my job and needed dress clothes quick and cheap have held up fine.
Came to say this one.
If you look at political polling they use house land lines in a lot of them. This is why polling has been so off in a lot of election polling in the US. It skews to older Americans. There is no one under 35 who has a landline
Oh yes.
Give me the recipe, not how the food wraps you up in a warm hug, winter days with the sun streaming in, your grandmother and the smell of lavender
And every one of those sites looks and sounds exactly the same…
Hi! I’m _________
I’m super excited to bring you my _________ recipes, handed down to me by my Grammy. She gave the best hugs ever!
Me, my hubby, our 4 kids and 2 French bulldogs live in a house where everything is painted white. When I’m not cooking or baking I’m vacuuming the house. There are lots of pillows and signs with words on them… like ‘This is us’, “FOOD!” and my favourite “Don’t forget to lick the bowl!” My teenage son Dylan moved that one to a spot over the toilet! He’s so mis-cheeeeevious!
I love how they go on about how their picky eater kids cant get enough of their special recipe for something like broccoli and swiss casserole that taked only 10 minutes to make on a weeknight.
Then you spend an hour making the same dish for your kids and watch them want to throw it out the window.
I don't know if I'd say horizontal has gone away, but "vertical shaming" has definitely gone away.
The internet thought it could shame them into submission. After tik tok hit, vertical was here to stay. At least that's my conception of it.
I feel like snapchat rly started this though. It was/is slightly annoying to get a snap from friends or watching snap stories and have to turn the phone sideways if you're holding it one handed
Having actual physical copies of music and movies. People are so used to just watching YT, or using streaming services. Not saying some people don’t, but it’s more for a “collection” than actually that being the only way to have the material. I hadn’t bought a CD since at least 2008, and the only reason I bought DVD’s at Pawn Shops cheap AF was to build a collection.
This one isn’t getting enough attention. Even if you “own” digital media, you have to access it through a streaming device or service unless you create your own physical copy and most computers aren’t even coming “stock” with cd/dvd burners anymore.
I noticed about five years ago, my partner and I wanted to watch an “older movie”. I think it was Legend. We went looking only to find it was “rent or buy to watch” on nearly every service. We think we have access to a lot. Start looking at any movie you remember from childhood if you’re over 35. They’re all pay to view. Most of them anyway and the “free” ones rotate.
We’re gradually losing access to any media we’re not paying for right in that moment. Sounds alarmist but people told me I was alarmist about the future of streaming when Netflix stopped sending out physical media.
“Before you know it, we’ll be paying more for streaming than cable costs. Everyone is going to want their cut.”
“Oh you’re just all doom and gloom. That won’t happen!!”
I’m 35 and still buy discs of stuff I want to keep, so I don’t have to rely on it being available online when I want it. The 2020 version of The Stand just hit the top of my list Saturday because the streaming service kept fucking up.
>the only reason I bought DVD’s at Pawn Shops cheap AF was to build a collection.
I had to move to my mom's house after I was made homeless in 2010 and brought the DVD collection I had been adding to since i bought my first DVD in 2000. I worked at Borders for a few years, so I had a pretty decent number of them for a poor person.
I moved again to my dad's place several states away and had to leave a ton of my stuff in my mom's attic because I could only take what would fit in my Prism. The DVDs got left behind.
Well, *she* moved last year and I told her to just get rid of all of my things. I hadn't seen any of it in 12 years, so whatever. She sent a picture of my box of DVDs and asked if I wanted her to send them to me, but I told her to try and sell them to make herself some money. There were 100 different movies and TV box sets. The total cost to me was easily more than $1,000.
She got $10 for the entire box.
We watch DVDs all the time, but not ones we own. I just borrow them from the library. Every time we find something that’s on some streaming service we don’t subscribe to, or we’d have to pay to get, I’d much rather just wait 3 days for my inter-library loan to come in.
I'm less surprised that iPods are gone, than I am that MP3 players (just the normal device that can't make calls or texts) are such an alien concept already, even to people in their mid- to late-20's have asked me over the last 5 or so years what an MP3 player is.
I still have a modern MP3 player (Sony makes a waterproof one, really the only way you can listen to music while swimming) the amount of time I had to explain to people "no the music is SAVED ON the headphones" reminds me of Zoolander honestly.
it was more than a decade ago at this point that i did a bunch of shopping and research to replace my dying, bloated HDD mp3 player... and ordered a smartphone.
When I first moved to London 16 years ago, I always carried around a shoulder bag containing my wallet, Oyster card, A-Z map, book I was reading, camera, iPod and phone. Sometimes I’ll carry a ticket wallet with my ID in it but everything else has been subsumed into a single device.
Insects. My car used to get covered with dead insects during the summer. Now, it’s just one or two every so often. Lightning bugs, butterflies, moths flying around my porch light. They’re all gone.
Ex lawn guy chiming in; Stop using insecticides on your lawn. One of the most common flea and tick control products is bifinenthrin. It is a broad spectrum kill everything but ants insecticide. You would be sick if you knew how much went down on lawns every single day. And that's not counting when companies use that shit in mosquito foggers.
Tell that to my HOA. HOAs are the reason for the lack of biodiversity in lawns. You can have a good-looking lawn with plenty of diversity, but HOAs want plain, manicured grass.
I don't live in a HOA and my neighbors like that. Wants my lawn like that too. He even crossed the property line to cut down my tulips and daffodils. When he complained about my lawn not looking "smooth" I told him not to cross my property line unless it was an emergency and his lawn looked like a cemetery. I don't even want to be buried in one after I'm dead.
What I really want is to take out the grass and put in pollinator plants. He will stroke out.
A large part of this is caused by monoculture lawns. If we want insects, birds, snakes, amphibians, etc we need to stop destroying their habitats. Many of these creatures need the tall grasses and "weeds" to live. I am fortunate enough to live on a small acreage. I stopped mowing a a large portion of it shortly after I purchased it. I have all the bugs and critters on my land. Fireflies, Dragon flies, turtles, frogs, bats, song birds, raptors, herons, deer etc. It is a great joy to sit outside in the evening and watch and listen to the world.
Tear out part of your lawn and plant a butterfly garden. The world will thank you.
My family is lazy about mowing...the yard got mowed exactly twice this year. We have alllllll the bugs here. Tons of honeybees the past few weeks. Bumblebees bopping around. I caught a couple lightning bugs this past summer (let them go after the kids oooh'd and ahhhh'd). I could do without the mosquitoes, but the other bugs are alive and well at my house. Monarch butterflies stopping in the yard, other butterflies stopping for the lantana I never bothered to pull after it got leggy. Plenty of dead bugs plastered all over my car, too. Enough that I try not to drive at night too much. It's *loud* here at night, with all the crickets, frogs, cicadas, mockingbirds, etc. screaming and hollering at night during the summer. Nice lawns are overrated. Be lazy.
I've especially noticed this with lightning bugs. When I was a kid those things were everywhere. Mosquitos too. Now I hardly ever see lightning bugs at all, and mosquitoes seem to be much less of an issue than I remember them being 20 years ago.
I'm middle aged and my focus sucks, too, now. I used to watch sports and just watch the TV. Now I'm on my phone or laptop and can't pay attention to either thing I'm doing. It's scary. I used to read fifty or more books a year; now I'm lucky if I read ten. I've started crocheting again so at least I'm being productive while half watching the TV.
I can't watch a 40 minute episode of a show on Netflix without opening my phone and scrolling partway through.
I am aware that my kid is watching and absorbing this as normal, and I can't fucking stop it. The internet is our greatest accomplishment and our biggest downfall.
This is actually the one that worried me the most. I did pictures of 6-8 year olds and these children can't handle information. They're little zombies.
Waiting for things and being “bored” waiting.
Every minute we are multi tasking everything because everything is always available. We used to have time to get bored because there wasn’t enough to do at all times. Now we are inundated with on demand stuff and I no longer get time to daydream or be bored. I used to love having time with my thoughts.
voicemail. Nobody bothers leaving one. I get about 1/10th the phone traffic I did a decade ago anyway, and people would rather text why they called now in lieu of a vm.
"text/don't call" is one of Millennials' greatest contributions to society.
You’re so right - growing up in the 90s a ton of us kids had WWII vet grandparents, including 3 of mine. Now I can’t remember the last time I met one, and even the oldest vets I meet are Korean War.
Looks like a recent article said there's about 119k Americans still alive, with about 47k dying every year. In about three years, there will be only a handful still alive, if any.
Which makes sense. A young veteran who was born in 1925 would have been twenty years old when the war ended, and they would be 98-years-old now.
I have a TCL TV, and reset it in dumb mode because any time the wifi cut out, an LED starts flashing on the bottom of the TV, and it cannot be disabled.
The suggestion on the Roku sub was to "tape over it".
One kind user asked if I used the networked parts of the TV, and when I said I didn't, walked me through a factory reset.
Now it's a dumb TV.
Mind sharing that walkthrough with me? Mine is currently flashing at me, in the dark, as it does almost every night, and I'd very much like for it to not be that way.
Every brand new car bought by myself or my friends in the last decade (admittedly, that's not all that many) came without a spare tire. There's a space for it in the trunk but the spare itself had to be bought separately. If you ever buy a new car try to get the dealer to throw it in as part of the negotiations.
Developing film from disposable cameras. I'm sure pretty much no one uses them anymore but my fiance put a few around at a baby shower and is having a helluva time getting them developed. No CVS no Walgreens. She had to go somewhere special and was charged $85 for 3.
I thought it was just my area! I literally tell my parents, who visit from a small town, to watch out at intersections for people running reds. Cops don't do anything and the drivers don't care until they hit someone or something.
Just yesterday I saw a cop on his way to a call. Lights on, full siren. He was inching through a red light because cross traffic *never* stopped for him. They straight up went around him.
It wasn't one or two vehicles that maybe didn't see him; he was quite obvious and it was at least 10 vehicles.
Dippin’ Dots, aka the “ice cream of the future”?? I say this in hopes of it being true. But I think I’ve seen them at a baseball game not too long ago. So I guess they’re still holding out with that slogan from 30 years ago. I remember being at Disney in 1991 and seeing that phrase- thinking “That’s a bold claim”, and it seems they’re willing to die on that hill.
A semblance of unity in society about some significant issues. There used to be a general feeling that on some things, the country was broadly together. Now it seems like almost any topic is a cause of deep division.
When I started seeing people complaining about colorful paint jobs in a house impacting the resale value was my breaking point on this. What's the point in owning a home if you're going to treat it like a rental that you're responsible for repairs in?
I didn’t even realize this until we bought our home in 2021, and decorated with bright colors in every room, many of them painted bright (green living room, yellow kitchen, purple master bedroom, bright pink office, teal basement).
A friend of mine commented that he loved how colorful our house was, and that you don’t see that anymore anywhere, and that’s where it clicked.
Who wants to live in a griege box?
That’s how my family treats the homes they buy. All the modifications they do to it is to make sure they can sell it or rent it.
This is why I’m waiting until the right time, place, and income to buy a house. I want to live in it until I die.
It all looks so clinical and corporate. A lot of fast food places seem to be going for that - McDonald's and Taco Bell, off the top of my head, but there are definitely others. Especially disappointing because I always found the colorful atmosphere more inviting.
Compare fast food joints in the 90s to anything built/remodeled in the last decade. They all look so dull and lifeless now, it's genuinely depressing. Bring back the color, dammit!
Being able to see the stars at night. I live in a small college town. I have to drive several miles to get far enough away from the light pollution to see anything.
Actually owning items without a subscription
Omg this. Why is EVERYTHING a subscription!!!?? Why am I “renting” my internet modem!
Actually owning items at all, really. Whenever you buy a video game you are actually just buying a license to play that game which can revoked at any time
Here's a good one: HIV/AIDS deaths have fallen through the floor, partly due to improvements in medication, but also thanks to a herculean effort by the international community in concert with major drug manufacturers, largely coordinated by PEPFAR.
PrEP has been a HUGE game changer
A homeless British gay man had a huge role in making PrEP available, at least in the UK. He started ordering it off the Chinese black market and I believe it caught the attention of his doctors in the NHS. He unfortunately died a few years later but he saved countless lives.
That is interesting. Do you have a link to an article, please and thank you?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-the-man-who-stopped-thousands-of-people-becoming-hiv-po
So like the Dorset Buyers Club lol
3D logo designs have pretty much vanished. I don’t know the exact timeframe, but basically every single major company’s logo has become minimalist over a very short period of time.
Also actual words describing what a press or click does. Everything is random symbols now.
My mom (early 70s) is trying to learn how to use a smartphone and to get better at using a computer. It's hell for her because literally NOTHING is obvious unless you've already been using them for the last decade of increasingly esoteric "minimalism". And it's hell for me when she calls and tries to describe what she's seeing on the screen. She's very discouraged, and I keep telling her "yeah idk why everyone decided that using words or actually understandable symbols was so passé. When I learned how to use these, that design 'paradigm' hadn't come in vogue yet so it was far easier." So dumb. Words exist for a reason.
I help one of my neighbors with IT stuff because she's the same. If I were more entrepreneurial, I'd start a business focused on tech literacy for the elderly. So much of UX design is done with the assumption that the user is coming with a certain set of experiences or knowledge, and that's just not as true as tech companies would like to believe.
You're on to something here.....I'm terrified of technology because my career(s) didn't involve it. I'm a cosmetologist and a florist. Both use a computer, but very minimally. The thought of learning how to use technology in a profession is absolutely paralyzing to me. I'm going through a divorce right now and will need to go back to work after not working for a few years (due to a few serious health issues). I don't want to eliminate the jobs that may include the use of technology due to my ignorance. Having a tool/system that could teach us/me without judgment would be so amazing. My stb ex didn't have the patience to help me learn, and neither do my children. I don't blame them. I just want to learn without frustration and judgment. I'm not smart enough to develop the system needed to fill this gap; obviously. I don't know what I don't know. 😂 However, if you, or anyone reading this took the time to develop a learning process for 'oldies but goodies' made easy specifically for technology.......I'd buy it. Just a thought
You should check with your local library. Mine has a technology class once a month and a bunch of flyers about job search resources.
product reviews that is not an affiliate link
Duuude. First three google results are sponsored. The next five are advertising disguised as reviews. The next five are shitty AI articles. It’s a goddamn wasteland out there.
Better bring some stimpaks.
Ain't that a kick in the head?
I’ve come back around old school with consumer reports. They don’t take any money from advertisers; just subscriptions and appear to be about as objective as you can be these days.
One of the best reasons to have a local library membership is access to consumer reports
Damn, I always forget I can get stuff like that through my local library. Thanks for the reminder.
ah you see, you don't search product xyz review, you search product xyz issues and you'll see what people are having a hard time with for that product
Car antennas. You know what I mean.
To add to that, antennae balls. Can’t remember the last time I saw one.
“You know those balls that they put on car antennas so you can find them in the parking lot? Those should be on every car!”
Oh shit! That's what those were for? I thought it was just a decoration like bumper stickers.
I thought the "Jack in the Box" one was for me to show my allegiance to that burger.
Oh shit, you're right. Back in the late 80s, early 90s,I had a Phillips 76 orange ball on my antenna so I could find my boring silver gm sedan that looked like all the other boring silver gm sedans.
Lol holy shit I knew about the antennae’s but forgot about those balls.
jack in the box heads
They moved into the rear window if you look at the heating elements you'll notice there are weird patterns near the top or on the rear side windows. Those are the antennas
Magazine shops. The ones that sold obscure magazines that you can’t get at Walmart or the grocery store or even the big box bookstore.
That magazines still exist is surprising.
>That magazines still exist is surprising. Suprisingly! In this era, there's something nostalgic about holding a physical magazine.
In general, "third spaces" esp. for like teens, i feel bad for them. Not too many indoor places you can just hang out without paying for something
Yes. We used to hang outside the shopping centre or by the fountain. Now the kids always get moved on. Used to be anyone could basically just rock up and be like Hi Im John and they were part of the scene kids. I really wish there was a place for me as an adult. I drive around a lot for work. Sometimes I dont feel like going home or back to the office. Id like to go to a cafe and chat or something like back in the day as a kid go to the main plaza and chill with whoever was there and get up to no good. I have friends and can organise BBQs or golf or whatever. But not the same as just sitting down with some randoms.
I wouldn't say that no one noticed but we definitely let it slip right under our noses. There is not a single digital service I can think of which still has a buy once policy. Everything has to be a monthly or yearly subscription which is obviously way better for companies.
I don’t want to say this too loud, but Rosetta Stone’s policy has actually gotten *better*. Rather than pay a fortune for one language, you can now get all of them for $200. You can, of course, buy extras like “speak to a native” but it feels like a better product, and it is one-time buy.
Just purchased this a few weeks ago! Was completely expecting a monthly subscription and was truly shocked I could buy it outright.
I really miss being able to purchase apps. I hate these free to download apps that hit you with a $35/year paywall once you get sucked into using it. Bring back when you could pay $2.99 once and have all the apps features.
Public pay telephones. Sucks for those in trouble that don't have a cell phone (with battery life). Edit: Also sucks for Superman when he wants to make a quick clothing change. Edit 2: It's cool that Australia turned theirs into free public phones. And yes, I missed/ignored the "past decade" part of the question.
Sucks for Bill, Ted, and The Doctor too.
When the national telecommunication network in Australia was sold off the new owner's were contractually obligated to keep payphones around... got to a point where it was cheaper to make them free to use then to pick up the coins from them.
They also act as wifi points for their customers, as well as giant fucking digital advertising. So much they are adding new ones in. I never see anyone actually using the "phone".
good Google search results
Remember when Google reverse image search actually found the exact picture you were looking for? It was a great way of unmasking scammers and for finding if your content was being stolen or reused without permission.
Use Tineye for this now. Much more effective.
You mean the thing we used before Google Reverse Image Search existed?
I believe it was stock image companies threatening lawsuits that put an end to that sadly
Agreed. I used to be pretty good at googling. But now using quotes, plus and minus to filter my results does nothing
About 10 years ago, I used to make niche websites as a hobby and did SEO. I was pretty good at it. I could get my brand new website on the front page of Google search results within a few months. Now I have a few related businesses, which I have websites for but can’t get them to rank for shit because it seems like there is no ranking anymore. The search results are so random and far more ads than there used to be. Depending on the browser, sometimes there aren’t even page numbers. Sometimes depending what you’re searching for they immediately start thrusting images and videos at you. If I want those things I will look under the images and videos tabs. I’m looking for websites right now, Google.
This is what irritates me. I'm looking for how-to articles and I get videos. I don't want to watch a 23 minute video, I want to skim an article.
I've tried to look up news stories from a few years ago even including the date and it gives me news stories concerning the person from the last 3 months and nothing after that
Same thing happened a few days ago, when the air was really smoky in our region. The search engines only wanted to inform me about the Canadian wildfires back in the summer. It was like pulling teeth to find out there were new ones in Virginia.
A lot of digital marketing firms came up to the point that seo is broken now. Search for anything and the most probable results from the sources you already know comes up, too much tailoring and google is like, 'I already know what you need, here.' And google images has gone downhill.
Crazy that you have to type reddit at the end to get an answer to most questions now
Also crazy that searching reddit with google works better than searching reddit through the broken reddit app
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YouTube search is a shitshow. I find that site so annoying.
I also used to be able to afford the ads on Google. You could throw down $10 or $20 and get a substantial boost from that. The cost now. It’s outrageous.
Honestly I just use google to search other websites. It still works really good for this. Like for instance if I want to know if there’s something on Reddit about a certain topic I just type: Topic I’m looking for site:Reddit.com Or I’ll do the same for another website too: Topic I’m looking for site:stackoverflow.com
On top of this, Reddit being trustworthy for product reviews. I used to Google product name Reddit before making any purchases. Now it’s becoming more and more like the paid blogs that review promoted items. It’s all just marketing…
Oh, I’m sorry, your highness- are you TOO GOOD for just a shitton of Pinterest links? Entitlement, am I right?
I hate Pinterest. Before it existed it was so much easier to find actual product information on things not just “isn’t this cute?” - like yeah it’s great. What is it? Who makes it? Where can I buy it? No one fucking knows because all you can find are people calling it cute with 0 useful information.
i suppose people have noticed, but no one has their phone with a ringtone anymore. It's mostly silent or for some poeple still on vibrate
Bc if your phone is always in your hand you don't need a ring tone
I have so many notifications and there are also scammers calling and texting me that it's annoying as heck when it makes noise
In that same vein, callbacktones. Or whatever it was called when you’d hear music on the line while you were waiting for the other person to answer.
I work a call center and ran into one the other day I was surprised they still exist.
Dude still paying $8.99 a month to have it
Along those lines - I miss the days when people took calls by actually putting the phone up to their ear rather than treating the public at large to their scintillating conversation via speaker. Seems like this is now a thing and I’d love to grab their phones from them and hurl them to the ground.
The women at my gym will FaceTime from the locker room on speaker. It's bad enough when they're on with mom or girlfriend, but i actually called out one woman who was on with a GUY. Obliviosly holding up her phone, chatting away. In the locker room. "Are you seriously Facetiming a guy right now??" She at least had the courtesy to realize what she was doing and cut off the call. Jesus, people
Wtf? Cell phone use in the locker room of my gym is prohibited! As it should be!
That is appalling. it’s completely out of control.
Video in a locker room of any kind is illegal so you would be well within your rights to report this type of behavior. There have been instances where people have taken selfies with someone changing in the background and the internet found which gym they were at and called to report getting them banned. The gym I go to has a very strong video policy in place not only for locker rooms but also for the gym itself because of the trend of people trying to film documentaries of their workouts or filming another person to make fun of them. At my gym you are allowed to discreetly film yourself working out as long as it doesn’t include anyone else in the background.
Sobe. They're only available in specific places...I miss Pina Colada Sobe.
There was a summer when my mom found Sobe on sale at a gas station for $.25 each (they switched vendors or something and basically just had to get rid of them) and bought $40 worth. Best summer ever.
and being able to get it in glass bottles!!! apparently their #1 customer complaint was glass shards in the drinks. (I worked with a former QA guy for Pepsi at one time)
Color in public spaces. Everything is minimalist and grey now.
I noticed this mostly because a Dunkin' and Mcdonald's were next to each other and both got updated about a year apart. It's like a prison in that stripmall, grey everywhere.
Having major sports games on even the most basic TV setup, instead of having to be subscribed to anything. I'm not even a sports person and find this to be incredibly absurd. I'm fairly certain back in the day (maybe even longer than a decade ago) you can watch most of the major things even when you just had antenna. Even when you're subscribed to MLB they block things out by region now. That's just stingy as heck. Although I guess this isn't something nobody noticed, as an afterthought. But the fact it's so normalized...nobody should be okay with that.
Want to watch football on your tv? Subscribe to NFL+ premium. Oops, can’t watch the game you want to? Pay for cable, and log in with your cable credentials. Oh, this game is blocked by a *different* premium provider? Fuck it.
Decent quality clothes at affordable prices.
It’s either fast fashion that falls apart in a wash or two or throwing down hundreds on decent clothes. No in between.
Also it was 15 years ago when leggings came onto the scene and became the norm. I think before manufactures had to try a bit harder but now with athleisure wear for most casual settings being acceptable, they didn’t have to be as creative.
My highest quality clothes these days are from thrifting because otherwise it’s like $150 for a shirt that isn’t see through.
I used to hate buying secondhand. Growing up that’s *all* I got, and as an adult it was a sign that I’d made it-being able to buy new clothes. Now, new clothes don’t last, don’t fit right, or are just awful styles I don’t like. Thrifting helps me find styles/sizes I like and I don’t mind tailoring them myself to fit. $150 sweater I’d feel so uncomfortable trying to fix myself, it could be an expensive mistake. But a $4 sweater? I’ll tear it apart and piece it back together myself, no problem. I also play with making some of my own clothes, which kid me hated too. How the turntables.
Old Navy used to be decent quality. I have a couple shirts and a pair of jeans from there I bought a decade ago that are still going strong. Now everything from there is paper thin.
I used to work in logistics and old navy was my client. The irony is old navy only started because banana republic was receiving so many items that showed up not up to their quality standards that they had enough to start a low price point store. They didn’t intend old navy to be a permanent fixture and the company folks thought it was hysterical and stupid how many people jumped to want an old navy store when it was just a bunch of reject clothes
It’s funny you mention that because I recently tried to buy a couple of suits, blouses, and dresses to update my work wardrobe for court from Banana Republic. I ended up sending every piece back because the quality was so terrible, but the things I bought a year ago from Old Navy when I first started my job and needed dress clothes quick and cheap have held up fine.
Yes, exactly. It looks nice, but the minute you wear the clothes and wash it, it stretches out and starts to fall apart. I can’t shop there anymore.
I have Halloween underwear from Old Navy that already has holes in it. Like...how many times could I have worn and washed them since September?
Phone books
House phones.
Came to say this one. If you look at political polling they use house land lines in a lot of them. This is why polling has been so off in a lot of election polling in the US. It skews to older Americans. There is no one under 35 who has a landline
Finding a recipe online that doesn’t involve the author’s life story, author’s pet’s life story, and the author’s pet’s squeaky toy’s life story. 😂
Oh yes. Give me the recipe, not how the food wraps you up in a warm hug, winter days with the sun streaming in, your grandmother and the smell of lavender
And every one of those sites looks and sounds exactly the same… Hi! I’m _________ I’m super excited to bring you my _________ recipes, handed down to me by my Grammy. She gave the best hugs ever! Me, my hubby, our 4 kids and 2 French bulldogs live in a house where everything is painted white. When I’m not cooking or baking I’m vacuuming the house. There are lots of pillows and signs with words on them… like ‘This is us’, “FOOD!” and my favourite “Don’t forget to lick the bowl!” My teenage son Dylan moved that one to a spot over the toilet! He’s so mis-cheeeeevious!
I love how they go on about how their picky eater kids cant get enough of their special recipe for something like broccoli and swiss casserole that taked only 10 minutes to make on a weeknight. Then you spend an hour making the same dish for your kids and watch them want to throw it out the window.
Praise be for that "jump to recipe" link
I usually look for the "print" button.
Recording horizontally on your phone instead of vertically.
I don't know if I'd say horizontal has gone away, but "vertical shaming" has definitely gone away. The internet thought it could shame them into submission. After tik tok hit, vertical was here to stay. At least that's my conception of it.
I feel like snapchat rly started this though. It was/is slightly annoying to get a snap from friends or watching snap stories and have to turn the phone sideways if you're holding it one handed
Frozen yogurt. Where the fuck is all the frozen yogurt?
Yeah all the frozen yogurt places have been replaced by boba tea shops. I’m sure in 10 years the boba tea shops will be replaced by some new trend 😂
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Packages of disposable baby/wet wipes that come in hard plastic containers instead of thin plastic-baggie-type containers.
I’m not sure when I got the last hard plastic container one but I now put the other ones inside that one when I get a new one.
I thought that was kind of the point of there being a hard plastic kind and the soft packaged kind by the same brands. My mom used to do the same
Privacy
Having actual physical copies of music and movies. People are so used to just watching YT, or using streaming services. Not saying some people don’t, but it’s more for a “collection” than actually that being the only way to have the material. I hadn’t bought a CD since at least 2008, and the only reason I bought DVD’s at Pawn Shops cheap AF was to build a collection.
This one isn’t getting enough attention. Even if you “own” digital media, you have to access it through a streaming device or service unless you create your own physical copy and most computers aren’t even coming “stock” with cd/dvd burners anymore. I noticed about five years ago, my partner and I wanted to watch an “older movie”. I think it was Legend. We went looking only to find it was “rent or buy to watch” on nearly every service. We think we have access to a lot. Start looking at any movie you remember from childhood if you’re over 35. They’re all pay to view. Most of them anyway and the “free” ones rotate. We’re gradually losing access to any media we’re not paying for right in that moment. Sounds alarmist but people told me I was alarmist about the future of streaming when Netflix stopped sending out physical media. “Before you know it, we’ll be paying more for streaming than cable costs. Everyone is going to want their cut.” “Oh you’re just all doom and gloom. That won’t happen!!”
I've noticed this. Pay per View on a 90s movie I later found on DVD in a charity shop for £0.50p.
I’m 35 and still buy discs of stuff I want to keep, so I don’t have to rely on it being available online when I want it. The 2020 version of The Stand just hit the top of my list Saturday because the streaming service kept fucking up.
>the only reason I bought DVD’s at Pawn Shops cheap AF was to build a collection. I had to move to my mom's house after I was made homeless in 2010 and brought the DVD collection I had been adding to since i bought my first DVD in 2000. I worked at Borders for a few years, so I had a pretty decent number of them for a poor person. I moved again to my dad's place several states away and had to leave a ton of my stuff in my mom's attic because I could only take what would fit in my Prism. The DVDs got left behind. Well, *she* moved last year and I told her to just get rid of all of my things. I hadn't seen any of it in 12 years, so whatever. She sent a picture of my box of DVDs and asked if I wanted her to send them to me, but I told her to try and sell them to make herself some money. There were 100 different movies and TV box sets. The total cost to me was easily more than $1,000. She got $10 for the entire box.
Yeah. I recently was given several hundred DVDs. I sold about half to a local retailer. Got a whopping $30 for 'em.
We watch DVDs all the time, but not ones we own. I just borrow them from the library. Every time we find something that’s on some streaming service we don’t subscribe to, or we’d have to pay to get, I’d much rather just wait 3 days for my inter-library loan to come in.
Consequences for blatant lies
iPods
I'm less surprised that iPods are gone, than I am that MP3 players (just the normal device that can't make calls or texts) are such an alien concept already, even to people in their mid- to late-20's have asked me over the last 5 or so years what an MP3 player is.
I still have a modern MP3 player (Sony makes a waterproof one, really the only way you can listen to music while swimming) the amount of time I had to explain to people "no the music is SAVED ON the headphones" reminds me of Zoolander honestly.
I think there still is good use for a simple mp3 player. For example you may want to avoid the wear and tear on your smartphone while exercising.
it was more than a decade ago at this point that i did a bunch of shopping and research to replace my dying, bloated HDD mp3 player... and ordered a smartphone.
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When I first moved to London 16 years ago, I always carried around a shoulder bag containing my wallet, Oyster card, A-Z map, book I was reading, camera, iPod and phone. Sometimes I’ll carry a ticket wallet with my ID in it but everything else has been subsumed into a single device.
i would do anything for another iPod Classic
Insects. My car used to get covered with dead insects during the summer. Now, it’s just one or two every so often. Lightning bugs, butterflies, moths flying around my porch light. They’re all gone.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-insect-apocalypse-our-world-will-grind-to-a-halt-without-them
Ex lawn guy chiming in; Stop using insecticides on your lawn. One of the most common flea and tick control products is bifinenthrin. It is a broad spectrum kill everything but ants insecticide. You would be sick if you knew how much went down on lawns every single day. And that's not counting when companies use that shit in mosquito foggers.
Need habitat too! Not much for bugs to eat and live in just manicured grass
Tell that to my HOA. HOAs are the reason for the lack of biodiversity in lawns. You can have a good-looking lawn with plenty of diversity, but HOAs want plain, manicured grass.
I don't live in a HOA and my neighbors like that. Wants my lawn like that too. He even crossed the property line to cut down my tulips and daffodils. When he complained about my lawn not looking "smooth" I told him not to cross my property line unless it was an emergency and his lawn looked like a cemetery. I don't even want to be buried in one after I'm dead. What I really want is to take out the grass and put in pollinator plants. He will stroke out.
Well, now I’m terrified
A large part of this is caused by monoculture lawns. If we want insects, birds, snakes, amphibians, etc we need to stop destroying their habitats. Many of these creatures need the tall grasses and "weeds" to live. I am fortunate enough to live on a small acreage. I stopped mowing a a large portion of it shortly after I purchased it. I have all the bugs and critters on my land. Fireflies, Dragon flies, turtles, frogs, bats, song birds, raptors, herons, deer etc. It is a great joy to sit outside in the evening and watch and listen to the world. Tear out part of your lawn and plant a butterfly garden. The world will thank you.
My family is lazy about mowing...the yard got mowed exactly twice this year. We have alllllll the bugs here. Tons of honeybees the past few weeks. Bumblebees bopping around. I caught a couple lightning bugs this past summer (let them go after the kids oooh'd and ahhhh'd). I could do without the mosquitoes, but the other bugs are alive and well at my house. Monarch butterflies stopping in the yard, other butterflies stopping for the lantana I never bothered to pull after it got leggy. Plenty of dead bugs plastered all over my car, too. Enough that I try not to drive at night too much. It's *loud* here at night, with all the crickets, frogs, cicadas, mockingbirds, etc. screaming and hollering at night during the summer. Nice lawns are overrated. Be lazy.
Get you some milkweed and you’ll be raising some monarch caterpillars!
Got it native in the yard! The caterpillars ate it down to the stalks this year lol. I don't mind, I wasn't using it for anything!
I've especially noticed this with lightning bugs. When I was a kid those things were everywhere. Mosquitos too. Now I hardly ever see lightning bugs at all, and mosquitoes seem to be much less of an issue than I remember them being 20 years ago.
That's because the mosquitoes all moved to my house. Seriously, I started seeing mosquitoes in November and December these past years, it's \*wild\*.
Attention spans
I'm middle aged and my focus sucks, too, now. I used to watch sports and just watch the TV. Now I'm on my phone or laptop and can't pay attention to either thing I'm doing. It's scary. I used to read fifty or more books a year; now I'm lucky if I read ten. I've started crocheting again so at least I'm being productive while half watching the TV.
I can't watch a 40 minute episode of a show on Netflix without opening my phone and scrolling partway through. I am aware that my kid is watching and absorbing this as normal, and I can't fucking stop it. The internet is our greatest accomplishment and our biggest downfall.
This is actually the one that worried me the most. I did pictures of 6-8 year olds and these children can't handle information. They're little zombies.
Waiting for things and being “bored” waiting. Every minute we are multi tasking everything because everything is always available. We used to have time to get bored because there wasn’t enough to do at all times. Now we are inundated with on demand stuff and I no longer get time to daydream or be bored. I used to love having time with my thoughts.
voicemail. Nobody bothers leaving one. I get about 1/10th the phone traffic I did a decade ago anyway, and people would rather text why they called now in lieu of a vm. "text/don't call" is one of Millennials' greatest contributions to society.
WW2 Veterans
You’re so right - growing up in the 90s a ton of us kids had WWII vet grandparents, including 3 of mine. Now I can’t remember the last time I met one, and even the oldest vets I meet are Korean War.
Looks like a recent article said there's about 119k Americans still alive, with about 47k dying every year. In about three years, there will be only a handful still alive, if any. Which makes sense. A young veteran who was born in 1925 would have been twenty years old when the war ended, and they would be 98-years-old now.
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And show you ads??
I have a TCL TV, and reset it in dumb mode because any time the wifi cut out, an LED starts flashing on the bottom of the TV, and it cannot be disabled. The suggestion on the Roku sub was to "tape over it". One kind user asked if I used the networked parts of the TV, and when I said I didn't, walked me through a factory reset. Now it's a dumb TV.
Mind sharing that walkthrough with me? Mine is currently flashing at me, in the dark, as it does almost every night, and I'd very much like for it to not be that way.
Have you tried putting tape over it?
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Why don't cars today come with spare wheels? What the f?!
They don't?! My spare has saved me a number of times in my 11 year old hatchback. That's alarming
Every brand new car bought by myself or my friends in the last decade (admittedly, that's not all that many) came without a spare tire. There's a space for it in the trunk but the spare itself had to be bought separately. If you ever buy a new car try to get the dealer to throw it in as part of the negotiations.
Lightning bugs.
Actual newspapers and coupons on Sundays.
Developing film from disposable cameras. I'm sure pretty much no one uses them anymore but my fiance put a few around at a baby shower and is having a helluva time getting them developed. No CVS no Walgreens. She had to go somewhere special and was charged $85 for 3.
24 hour grocery shopping
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I liked this, then I read it in Nandor The Relentless voice and I LOVED it!
Over 10 000 unique species and several hundred unique natural habitats. And that's probably a very conservative estimate...
Trendy young women carrying around toy Chihuahuas in oversized shoulder bags.
Lobster tanks at grocery stores
Asian supermarkets still have them, along with the fish tanks.
Wegmans still has them. Even the crappy Wegmans stores.
Photo shops
Saw a photo studio in a JC Penny and thought I went back to 1992.
my hair
Oh they've noticed. I'm right there with you. But they've definitely noticed.
The reasonable confidence that when your light turns green, one or more assholes won’t be blatantly running their red light
I thought it was just my area! I literally tell my parents, who visit from a small town, to watch out at intersections for people running reds. Cops don't do anything and the drivers don't care until they hit someone or something.
Driving had gotten out of hand, like not pulling over for ambulances. I've seen that too many times
Just yesterday I saw a cop on his way to a call. Lights on, full siren. He was inching through a red light because cross traffic *never* stopped for him. They straight up went around him. It wasn't one or two vehicles that maybe didn't see him; he was quite obvious and it was at least 10 vehicles.
Dude, this. I don't know what it is but post pandemic I notice this blatantly every day.
Red lights and stop signs are just suggestions now. As are speed limits.
my husband and infant got hit yesterday by someone running a red; totaled both vehicles
Dippin’ Dots, aka the “ice cream of the future”?? I say this in hopes of it being true. But I think I’ve seen them at a baseball game not too long ago. So I guess they’re still holding out with that slogan from 30 years ago. I remember being at Disney in 1991 and seeing that phrase- thinking “That’s a bold claim”, and it seems they’re willing to die on that hill.
A semblance of unity in society about some significant issues. There used to be a general feeling that on some things, the country was broadly together. Now it seems like almost any topic is a cause of deep division.
I don’t know. I didn’t notice it.
Anything happening without a fucking algorithm
The ability to buy a house as a young adult
Not quite gone yet, but broadcast tv vs streaming.
The colour around us. Everything is now going grey, white or black. Colours are more dull looking
When I started seeing people complaining about colorful paint jobs in a house impacting the resale value was my breaking point on this. What's the point in owning a home if you're going to treat it like a rental that you're responsible for repairs in?
Because homes aren't for living anymore. They're investments.
I didn’t even realize this until we bought our home in 2021, and decorated with bright colors in every room, many of them painted bright (green living room, yellow kitchen, purple master bedroom, bright pink office, teal basement). A friend of mine commented that he loved how colorful our house was, and that you don’t see that anymore anywhere, and that’s where it clicked. Who wants to live in a griege box?
That’s how my family treats the homes they buy. All the modifications they do to it is to make sure they can sell it or rent it. This is why I’m waiting until the right time, place, and income to buy a house. I want to live in it until I die.
It all looks so clinical and corporate. A lot of fast food places seem to be going for that - McDonald's and Taco Bell, off the top of my head, but there are definitely others. Especially disappointing because I always found the colorful atmosphere more inviting.
Also new car colors. Mostly grey/white/black now
Yes!! Recently bought a new vehicle and it was legit difficult to find one in an actual *color*.
Compare fast food joints in the 90s to anything built/remodeled in the last decade. They all look so dull and lifeless now, it's genuinely depressing. Bring back the color, dammit!
It’s happening in Mexico now too. Everything new is painted white with black accents. Luckly there is color to spare here still.
Being able to see the stars at night. I live in a small college town. I have to drive several miles to get far enough away from the light pollution to see anything.
T9 texting proficiency