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What technologies were ubiquitous ten years ago and are much less common now?
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Oh god, yes.
I could type in a question ten years ago and could usually get an answer in the first page or so.
I asked a question yesterday (about floor tiling) and got "Tiles? You want tiles? We've got tiles! Get your tiles here!"
"No, I want an answer about flooring."
"FLOORING? You want flooring? We've got flooring! Get your flooring here!"
"Ok, fucking hell. Ok how do I join 2 types of substrate together..."
"MUTHERFUCKING, substrate? You want substrate? We've got..."
Then I gave up looking. Maybe it was always like this and I used to be more tenacious looking for answers.
Even when you get to the actual website results you now have to wade through the AI slop sites
For that matter, it felt like a peak for the rest of the internet, and everybody loved silicon valley and wanted to be Steve Jobs. Then the enshittification started.
ITT: People not realizing 10 years ago was nearly the end of 2015 and listing technologies that were popular 20+ years ago.
2015 still feels like a date from the future to me
Optical disks. It was almost a necessity on laptop to have an optical drive, now there's maybe one or two models out there that comes with one.
Even 10 years ago, disc drives seemed to be out of fashion. But if you laptop was 5 years old, it likely have one anyways.
I used a MacBook for 10 years that was one of the first models to come without a disc drive, it was a 2013 model.
I recall it being a bit ahead of the curve at the time, but it was a pretty fast curve before you really couldn't find a laptop with a disc drive anymore.
10 years ago was 2015. I went to buy a laptop from Dell in 2014, and they didn't have any models with a disc drive. I looked.
Maybe 1/100 people I see using headphones have wired headphones, certainly wasn't the case 10 years ago. Bluetooth technology and quality has come a long way.
I'd still have wires IF MY PHONE HAD A PLACE TO PLUG THEM IN.
I refuse to buy a phone without a headphone jack. I'm not sure if I even have a choice anymore tbh... Really I only use my phone for music and text/call. A dandy map if I need one, but not usually.
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Bluetooth isn't the technology that's come a long way, it's still the same shit it was decades ago. It's batteries.
That's just not true, Bluetooth codecs have improved sound quality DRAMATICALLY.
And I say this as someone who's not a big fan of wireless.
it's still the same shit it was decades ago.
The engineers at Bluetooth SIG busting their ass to give us Bluetooth 6.1: "am I a joke to you?"
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I'd say audio CDs, but those have been back on the upward trend since streaming and download services started getting hostile and people started wising up to that hostility, in other words, people want to own their music again and so started buying CDs again recently vs. having a streaming or download service randomly yank content they paid for from their libraries.
Cd roms. Network ports on laptops
Headphone jacks and Micro SD Card Readers.
Dedicated GPS unit in your car
My parents gave me a GPS unit for my car about 20 years ago and I used it for the longest time. It was great help when driving in cities and big towns or locations I had never gone to before. We used it all the time and I think I updated the maps ... I think it was a Garmin device ... I think I updated the maps 2 or 3 times over the years. Then it went unsupported but I kept using it for the longest time.
Then I started buying better smartphones and my phone just eventually replaced the GPS unit.
I still have it and it still works and the battery on it is still good ... I just don't need it any more and the maps are about 10-15 years out of date.
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URL shorteners, AMP? Micro USB?
Edit:
Thinking of things that weren’t made obsolete but just unprofitable…
Physical menus at restaurants, useful search results, human support staff, non-subscription software, open APIs, useful product reviews
I hate with a burning passion QR code scan menus.
I saw on Kitchen Nightmares one time where the QR code pointed to http://localhost/ haha
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Independent portable media players. Most of those functions have been susumed by phones.
Which makes me frustrated that all the manufacturers have gotten too cheap to toss a miniscule DAC and headphone jack in phones anymore.
Headphone jack and micro SD cards and the biggest losses for me.
I don't think it's about them being cheap, it's that they want to sell you the matching wireless headset
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Portable handhelds, I mean form factors like the PSP and Nintendo DS. The downside of the console/handheld convergence is that the handhelds need pretty big screens.
Headphone jacks. They certainly still exist but every device I owned that made sounds had one in 2015, no longer the case
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I don't eat at QR code restaurants.
If you don't have a menu, I don't pay.
I much prefer some of the QR code restaurants we have in my city. I don't want a waiter hassling me throughout my meal.
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Pay phones, Public water fountains, Coffee grinders in grocery stores, all the hundreds of gadgets that our smart phones replaced, Tons of random accessories for everything were all over stores and eBay but sadly all gone now.
all the hundreds of gadgets that our smart phones replaced
In 2015, at least in Canada, smart phones were already ubiquitous.
Interesting point about the grinders, I'm just realising I haven't seen any in forever.
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Oh yeah, coffee grinders in grocery stores. I rarely see those anymore, but they used to be everywhere.
They weren't quite ubiquitous anymore, but looking for a payphone wasn't a sign of someone being a time traveler. The last one near me hung on until a couple years ago.
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