Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

I was watching a programme about Nokia which mentioned how Apple came along with its massive touchscreen, which sacrificed battery life and durability i.e. we all now accept that a phone battery will need charging at least every night and if we drop the phone the screen will shatter, which wasn't the case before. There must be tons of these?

My own personal bugbear is how you used to be able to change the TV channel with a remote instantaneously rather than having to wait a couple of seconds after pressing the button and now that's seemingly impossible.

On a larger scale it's probably a backwards step that everyone is expected to have a recent smartphone to conveniently do loads of things (show your boarding pass, or whatever) and shit stops being supported within a few versions. Music compression too. But I guess I'm thinking of specific annoyances that shouldn't even be problems.

I was only half-watching the Nokia programme so please feel free to correct my comprehensive history of Apple there.

the original gameboy lasted about eight years through new release support and actual durability of the hardware

Everybody's landline used to work in a blackout.

^^ good one, also you can no longer get DC power from landlines

taking the headphone jack away

Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too.

sez you, "Telecom"

:)

at my gym i have to log in on a giant touch screen to run on the fucking treadmill. the other day it asked me if i wanted to install updates. hl;kjalkjh;asgdhl;kasgd

My own personal bugbear is how you used to be able to change the TV channel with a remote instantaneously rather than having to wait a couple of seconds after pressing the button and now that's seemingly impossible.

― kinder, 14. august 2019 00:14 (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wait, what?

oh god please just go away

iPod clickwheel RIP

Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too

Right? It used to actually be enjoyable to talk on the phone (not to mention that handsets were much more ergonomic/comfortable/seemed less likely to induce brain cancer), no wonder phone calls seem like an intrusive nuisance now.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/08/the-us-navy-says-no-to-touchscreens-maybe-automakers-should-too/

I realized too when I got an iPhone for xmas how much it suffered from an absence of the trackball on my old phone.

The iPad was a bit of a stumble
-techno beaver

remote control thing is a great example. that drives me crazy any time i'm in a hotel or something and just want to enjoy the mindless zone-out of channel surfing. related: TVs coming with "motion smoothing" turned on by default and sometimes with no option to turn it off.

* many websites/apps/etc. have gotten slower and junkier as they've added features, loaded up with data-draining graphics and videos and scripts. like, just trying to see what the hourly weather forecast for tomorrow is involves a lot more clicking and waiting than it did a few years ago. google maps is another one that's gotten a lot shittier.

* new laptops with only USB-C ports so that to make this sleek, elegant thing fully functional and do basic things you need to buy an expensive dongle and have it hang awkwardly off the apple lust object.

* also in general, laptops replacing desktops for a computer that remains at a desk at all times --- massively worse ergonomically and less computer for your money.

* not to make this a physical media thread but def all the downsides of the streaming world belong here. but obv there are many tradeoffs.

* general trend of offloading labor onto unpaid customers (self check out, surveys, pressure from amazon to answer support questions for products you've bought, etc.).

* death of big-budget 2D animation (in hollywood anyway).

history is littered with these of course, cf. invention of agriculture and human health/life expectancy/society. or cars replacing transit networks, all of those stories. or at a pettier level, all the changes in shaving since idk the 1960s or 70s.

Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too.

i hung onto my landline for longer than most people and in the early days of cellphones it was infuriating talking to anyone on theirs because the audio quality was terrible. it's better now but still not as good as landlines were.

the substitution of plastics for paper, cloth, wood, and metal (not as acceptable as it used to be but never more pervasive)

Color printer/scanners are a now an everyday cheapish appliance but their rate of malfunction makes them barely worth the trouble.
A black and white laserjet that couldn’t scan shit would cost you an arm but you could be sure that sucker would turn out pages for ages, iirc.

A lot of fast fashion type stuff bugs me, like having to actually look for cotton underwear.

as someone who lives in a country where you wear gloves several months out of the year, i daily cursed the engineer who introduced thumbprint unlock as the default on the iPhone

the default of ‘pick up your phone and look at it before we reveal the content of a text’ on the iPhone ten also a v stupid idea

A black and white laserjet that couldn’t scan shit would cost you an arm but you could be sure that sucker would turn out pages for ages, iirc.

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, August 13, 2019 5:02 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Brother still makes products of this caliber and they aren't disturbingly expensive.

at a pettier level, all the changes in shaving since idk the 1960s or 70s.

― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, August 13, 2019 4:26 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

development of laser hair removal is a big improvement tbh

Color printer/scanners are a now an everyday cheapish appliance but their rate of malfunction makes them barely worth the trouble.

Not to be a commercial but after years of having problems with inkjet printers and generally feeling like they were the most unreliable piece of technology in existence, I bought an Epson Eco-tank and it has been life-changing. I actually love my printer now and wouldn’t trade it for anything. 100% reliable, scans and prints great, I haven’t had to refill it yet and I’ve had it for... 2 years? No more of the seemingly constant cartridge replacements. /commercial

Of course, that’s the opposite of what this thread is about.

I just had a 1958 Grundig tube radio repaired, it sounds amazing; finding someone who could work on it was the hard part

it wasn't really so long ago that devices like radios, TVs, stereo components, and even personal computers were designed to be repaired and kept in service for many years; now the same kinds of devices go directly to the landfill as soon as they fail, if not sooner; the fact that the replacement devices are cheaper and more capable than the junked ones is not a particularly impressive sign of progress

The loss of institutional knowledge about how to build heavy-duty, reliable liquid propellant rocket systems has had a massive impact on space programs around the world.

Now somebody tell me they have a way to get to the moon just fine.

I’m gonna be really anxious when the time comes to buy a new TV because the one I have has been so good for so long *raps on wooden table*

i was curious about buying a new tv - i haven't had one since the mid 90s, a portable black-and-white model from the 80s passed on to me from my parents - and the enormous variations in crazy features and too-good-to-be-credible prices just made me give up

I started with the knowledge that I wanted a Sony of a certain size with a certain number of HDMI inputs and went with that, I think?

i recently had ceiling fans installed, and we got the ones with lights built in

too late i realised that to turn the lights on and off we now need to fumble around with a dinky battery powered remote

curse a society that no longer understands that light switches should be easy to find in the dark

(also every button press is accompanied by an annoying beeping sound that can't be muted)

that everything has a remote is ridiculous.

Wait, I've never turned lights on or off with a battery-powered remote. That is not a backward step I accept!

Landlines, though. Still had one until 2011. I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who finds it physically difficult to converse satisfyingly on a smartphone.

i hate talking on the phone now, it makes me antsy and eager to get off the phone. but i don't know if that is something abt the phone itself, or how my expectations and practices around phones have changed, esp thru texting taking the place of calls for almost all the things i used to make calls for. and the ppl on the other end feeling the same way and distracted and eager to get off the phone too.

everyone hates talking on the phone now.
it's social anxiety and because we have so many job related activities where one is on the phone all the time.

although my mom still chats away like she is teenager of the year.

It used to be that after CRT and plasma declined, televisions were a forced compromise: backlit LCD or nothing, which suck for watching films (bad shadow levels, motion smoothing, etc etc). I white-knuckled the gap between plasma and OLED by self-repairing my plasma when the power supply failed, and then buying a used plasma which got me through (barely, with lines on the screen and driver failures) just until the OLEDs came down enough for me to consider an end-of-line clearance price.
Now of course I have the best TV of my life - it's kind of ironic because my film library is worth probably 5-10 times as much as the screen I watch them on.

Landlines were easier to have a conversation on because it was in real time. Cellphones have gotten better, but they're still bouncing audio off of metal towers like a pinball machine. Landlines were the technological final product of an evolution that began with two cans and a piece of string, and worked just fine.

I have the same tv remote problem with my microwave.

Are there really cars out there that combat drowsiness by not letting itself drift over any white or yellow line unless the blinker is on?] Because I will lose my shit, that's all there is to it.

things have gotten a bit better, but even as the early playstation era was happening i remember thinking "wow it sucks that i have to wait 15 seconds for every other screen to load". that was in stark contrast to the near-instant load times of the cartridge based systems at the time and of the recent past.

of course, we were all more than willing to wait as long as it took to gedda load of them polygams

https://i.imgur.com/KKf0O1X.jpg

When you buy a new video game and it has to spend an assload of time downloading "updates" before you can play the fucking thing.

Also Denny's getting rid of the Breakfast Dagwood

“like, just trying to see what the hourly weather forecast for tomorrow is involves a lot more clicking and waiting than it did a few years ago”

(since you’re not opposed to using google:) google “(city) weather” once, ctrl+h “wea” for every instance after

P much any form of watching tv now.

Are you guys saying landlines don't sound as good as they used to, or that cellphones don't sound as good as landlines? I agree with the latter, but as for the former, my landline still sounds great. I would never have a conversation on my cellphone unless I was away from home.

We have a landline so we can put the number on paperwork, and for “just in case.” I think we turned the ringer off two years ago. It sits behind the dehumidifier in our master bedroom.

xp saying that cellphones don't sound as good as landlines.

Coca Cola Freestyle machines. Ok...i love em. But...

Soda fountains in the past, usually your biggest problem was the soda came out flat because the bag needed to be changed. So maybe your number one choice isn't available, but other stuff is. Also, multiple people can fill their shit at the same time.

But with these fuckin machines, if you are unlucky enough to go to a store with only one machine, you gotta wait behind the dummy who can't figure it out.

Then when you get there, sometimes they're out of like every diet product, but you don't find out until you click on it and try to pour it, it stops, and greys out.

And then sometimes the shit just malfunctions and nobody in the restaurant knows how to fix it because they gotta call some help line. And if none of the machines work, you gotta wait in kine and get someone at the counter to pour you a drink

iPod clickwheel RIP

Oh and inspired by Neanderthal’s post just now! Automated airport bag drops - just an awful scourge and take far more time than having someone check the suitcase and slap the sticker on it for you. Goes double if you’re stuck behind people who are confused by this (naturally). Waited fifteen minutes behind a family checking in three suitcases the other day - there should have been staff to help them.

why do I have to go to Print to save something as a PDF? Is this a mac thing?

I think Neanderthal explained this to me.

The printer isn't printing each letter and image of your file like a dot-matrix printer. It's taking a picture, so to speak, and printing that in its entirety. And that picture is actually a PDF.

Most software will have a Save to PDF option, but some still go through the Print tab first.

Thanks!

I know we don’t “accept” this, but since there’s no way around it, it counts I think:

AI customer service that makes it impossible to actually figure out what is going on with an order.

I purchased some earplugs, the highest rated for best price pair that I could find online, and I got a notification they had shipped. Great!

Next day, I get a notification that there is a processing issue with the order.

Yesterday, after more than two weeks, I decide to check on the tracking— a shipping label has been created. That’s it.

So I write to customer service. I explain that I need these for some upcoming events, and if they were going to be delayed, I would never have ordered them. I express a desire to cancel the order.

I get an AI generated response that says since they have “shipped,” there is no way to cancel the order. I then wrote back saying that I am not a fool, but that it isn’t my problem that the company is having supply chain issues, and in that case, wouldn’t it make sense to not accept new orders on the website? I get the same canned AI response.

It turns out that this company is known for having significant delays in shipping out orders and being totally unresponsive in its customer service.

So I had to buy a different pair of earplugs, and when these arrive, I will be either selling them or trying my best to send them back.

It is ridiculous that we have to accept this shit.

trying to find an actual human to deal with is becoming harder every year, obviously AI is one culprit, but it's been getting gradually worse for ages. my web host became impossible to deal with last year when they "upgraded" their AI chat

I think it's pretty much always been that way but it annoys me that we get a notification that an item has "shipped" when all that has happened is that the shipping label has been printed.

And that the AI agent then basically passed the buck, since it is “shipped” there is nothing you can do, stupid human

definitely gaming the system by printing out the label before actually having the item

the really infuriating thing is when you get passed to a "human" who starts handling your case and it's clear that they're just feeding the conversation into an AI and pasting the reply into the email back to you

I got funneled into an AI customer service chat recently.

Me: I'd like to exchange this item for the same item in a different size, but I don't see the option on the site, can you help?

Bot: No problem! I have processed your exchange request and you will receive the same item, but in a different size, no later than Wednesday. Please return the unused item before September 9.

Me: But I didn't tell you which size I want?

Bot: Not to worry! I've processed your request. Is there anything else I can help you with?

lol omg

I just have my AI talk to customer service AI's, usually they do a better job than I do at breaking the loop. Takes one to know one.

please tell me you’re joking

given Jeff’s enthusiasm for tech grifts— bitcoin and NFTs— i wouldn’t doubt equal enthusiasm for the greatest grift going

Guilty as charged

Sorry to break the AI streak, but you know we're about 20 years in on capacitive touch screens. They're great but like a single drop of rain much less a fumble with the device can cause any number of unintentioned actions....

...which on no device today you can easily understand or reconcile once the event is done.

An unfortunate drop of rain accepts something I did not see. I have no idea what to do.

An unfortunate fumble causes a swipe that dismisses a notification or an email. What did I miss?

Why can I not always universally undue, or at least understand what was done?

yeah that happens to me all the time on my iphone! seconding a plea for an “undo”

20 years in and I still really hate typing on screens.

Yeah me too.

They promised we would all be doing voice by now but (a) that's even worse when it gets confused and (b) its often embarassing

Why can I not always universally undue, or at least understand what was done?

thirded

They promised we would all be doing voice by now

This is literally the last thing I ever want to do with technology.

There is so much appetite for my dept to create a customer service chat bot and I am infuriated but also...it can translate automatically? We don't have language resources on our website (you can have your browser set up in translation obv which works pretty well) so if you need to ask a specific question, like "What time does [x] location close?" you can ask in your preferred language and get the answer in that language. I am...unable to directly oppose this but luckily we have a few higher priorities to focus on...for now.

Typing on screens is miserable because the predictive tools have been made immeasurably worse by what I suspect is switching them to AI over whatever logic they had before? It makes no sense now, I can type one wrong letter in a word and it converts it to a totally unrelated dissimilar word.

was on vacation for a week and realized how abysmally bad web design is for pretty much every single restaurant or museum I interacted with during the trip... why physical address and hours need to be buried behind multiple layers of menus I will never, ever understand. that info should be on the landing page, at the top. every time. I'm not going to waste time looking at your menu if I don't know where you are and if you're open right now.

I agree it's an infuriating state of affairs, that said, my workaround is always Google Maps - even if I know where something is. Rather than going to that entity's site, Maps will tell me how long it takes to get there and when they're open, which is often all I need to know.

We were exploring Atlanta recently and, you know, doing the usual shit in a new town: getting tickets, making reservations, paying for parking, etc. Everything required a phone or an app and everything took so many steps and had so many options that I felt like I was in Brazil (the movie).

Basic things feel like a mensa test and after going through this repeatedly over the course of a day it makes me never want to leave my fucking house.

was just on vacation so often had to look at the hours and locations for restaurants/stores/attractions and google maps is a much better search engine for this kind of stuff, it has the location obviously, the hours are right there and for restaurants there are often photos of the menus

I'm just going to start refusing to do things that require apps tbh.

it's kind of easier when you can just scan a QR code instead of downloading an app but it's still rather annoying

look how else are we going to put eight SaaS middlemen between you and a Van Gogh

I can type one wrong letter in a word and it converts it to a totally unrelated dissimilar word.

my nemesis too

I absolutely hard that

the touch screen on my Toyota stopped working properly, in the sense that i have to tap the screen an inch down and to the left of the onscreen button for it to work. which means all the buttons on the far left or bottom of the screen don't work. there's apparently no easy way to recalibrate it, i'm not even sure it's possible.

xxp and I can't tap it and change it back! fuck off samsung.

touch screens in cars are among the dumbest shit ever conceived

Minneapolis and St. Paul parking is maddening as both cities decided on two different parking apps that both work like shit

where I am there's about 4. and my phone is too old for at least one of them.

(I'm finally preparing to buy a new phone, at least)

how abysmally bad web design is for pretty much every single restaurant

Also, when the menu link sends you not to a menu but the online ordering system.

(I'm finally preparing to buy a new phone, at least)

― kinder, Wednesday, August 19, 2026 6:54 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

still holding out. i've had my iphone 6 for 8 years lol. i'm very attached to its physical headphone jack.

so far the apps that don't work anymore aren't critical. downtown slc still has kiosks that take a bank card thankfully.

if my banking app stops working that's probably when i'll need to get a new phone.

work gave me an iphone se that's at least a few years newer than my personal phone. i've switched over to taking all my photos and videos on it. so i'm in a weird place where i'm juggling files and logins between devices, using whatsapp to get photos from one phone to the other. routing things around like it's a jigsaw puzzle. i don't remember "doing stuff" with digital files ever being this involved tbh.

when the menu link sends you not to a menu but the online ordering system.

argh yes - and inevitably forcing you through additional hoops. What location? Pickup or delivery? Ooooh, sorry, they're not taking orders right now! well yeah i know, it's 11 at night and it's a breakfast place, i just want to see what's on the menu, dang it!

Exactly!

First app to go was my Pizza Express loyalty points, ha (probably had about 3 points). No idea why dumb schemes like this don't just let you log into a website.
I got this phone juuust before Covid lockdowns kicked in, have managed to not completely break the screen. Every few days some picture gets stuck on my homescreen and stops me using the touch-screen, so I have to restart it with the side buttons.

Anyway: another backwards step. Small business loyalty cards that you can now only do by an app. Everywhere from my local pub to falafel place does this now. I've still got a wallet stuffed with cards with 2 stamps on. Don't tell me they're redundant?!
Related: things you can only do on an app, and not the website. Tesco stock-checking for example. I can see that my mum's local Tesco does indeed stock the thing she wanted, but had to have the app to find out.

i somehow lost all my Slice app points when I checked a few weeks ago, quite infuriating. i did make it to a free pie once, though, that was hella satisfying lol

lol at the slice app. pretty sure zing no longer runs on my phone. strava works though and is surprisingly fast. who knows what they're doing with all that data.

i've used some bloated ass apps my phone. gay dating apps are the worst offenders ime.

I thought you guys were talking about Slice the soda

Small business loyalty cards that you can now only do by an app

if you wanna see my eyes glaze over HARD, it's the places where you have scan a QR code just to see what they serve and what it costs

Just came from a restaurant where the menu QR code wasn't working on my phone, so I asked if they had a paper menu, and instead the bartender held up his phone, for me to read the whole menu off his phone, while he held his phone and tried to helpfully scroll. It was a long menu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lm4ySb-lrI

looool yes indeed

to pp