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Tupperware. Grandmas stuff is still around. It’s probably unhealthy to use but modern stuff doesn’t last.

I have fond memories of the days of just plugging something in, and pressing the input button. Instant gratification. It was a simpler time.

Dunno what kind of TVs you're using, but my Sony OLED pretty much behaves exactly like this. The Smart TV features are laggy and shit as usual, but those are still features that didn't exist in the old days so it's not a 1 to 1 comparison.

But with regards to just plugging in a blu ray or PS5 and hitting the input button, that's exactly how my modern TV works.

In fact, I don't even need to turn it on or hit the input button... Since they're both Sony, all I need to do is press the button on my PS5 controller and it turns on my TV and PS5 and switches to the correct input, without having to touch the remote. And vice versa (can turn on/off and control PS5 menus with the TV remote).

Printers

Holy shit rose tinted glasses all up in here. Let me be straight with you guys, televisions are definitely better, cell phones are much better, I don't think there's a single (consisting mostly of) electronics (some coffee grinders, maybe some other kitchen appliances) device that existed in the 90s/naughts that I would take over it's current iteration.

Smart TVs and cae infotainnent systems, for sinilar reasons. Full of bloat, so many bugs and unreliable functioning.

Just don't connect your TV to the internet and plug in a raspi. All the "smart" you could ever want without the bloat

Most electric appliances in the second version. Always some lock-in anti repair bullship.

Autocorrect on smartphones. Arguably, smartphone keyboards in general. The old iPhone keyboard was second to none in my opinion, but it feels like they've all got worse.

Using a typewriter was a nightmare, but the keyboard feel was so satisfying.

Keyboards. They had way better and more innovative switches back then. You'll be hard pressed to find anything today that doesn't use cherry, or cherry clones.

I remember back a decade or so ago when phones had a fully customizable ringtone option, wouldn't constantly tell you they're overheating when it's only thirty degrees out, had a block function that actually worked, didn't dump spam calls on you, wasn't always spying on you, and didn't cost so much per month, often coupled with the possible fact you don't actually use it everyday and maybe only have it to keep your overworried parents pleased.

I don't know about you, but for the unforeseeable future, mine is, for the large part, ghosted. I remember being in a dispute with someone where they asked what my number was as a form of feeling secure about me. "What age do you live in" he bitterly asked, "everyone uses a phone, are you a fake zoomer who is BSing me". This is the pedestal the existence of phones thrives on. Imagine if I was Amish, do you think I would survive past the job interview stage of finding a new job?

Even when I had high hopes, the way people would market the thousand-app aspect of it was absolutely fierce, you couldn't go tech shopping without the person selling you stuff going on and on about the smallest nook and crannies in each extra feature like they were Steve Irwin trying to teach you the beauty of whatever animal you just happened to step on (RIP Steve Irwin), and you couldn't do so much as go to a festival without a business person from the phone stall running up to you asking to pay for new plans like a Jehovah's Witness on a leash (always stood out to me because they were the only ones who would operate like this).

Phones today are borderline what they are in Futurama.

One wheel

The original

• easy to replace batteries,

• easy maintenance,

• most important: highly customizable

(I mean, yes, you could blow yourself up with the gigantic lithium pack in your garage, but the community around one wheel has a lot of rich guidance to prevent you from doing that)

Entered version 2

• batteries are now locked to the device.

• hey! Ride carefully! Battery pack unplugging (even by accident) bricks the device 😆

• uuuh, I bricked the device. What now? Send the device across Atlantic ocean to HQ in the US to plug it back in 🤣 🤣

Books and authorship in general. To make a living these days many feel pressured into using closed source corpo messaging systems like tiktok, twitter, instagram, etc to promote some bs brand to sell books because the market is flooded with so much garbage from AI generated to auto translates to just poorly written unedited gibberish.

VGA just worked. HDMI and DP aren’t nearly as reliable.

Roads. Used to lay down concrete and they’d last for a decade. Now they put down asphalt on top of a concrete base. Granted they cost less in the long run to maintain.