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It's 2025. What things don't you miss now that used to be commonplace?

The Friendly Jewish Ghost

The Friendly Jewish Ghost

scotpens
Premium Member
So, I thought I'd start an answer thread to "It's 2025. What things do you miss now that we used to have?" What things that were common or normal a few decades ago don't you miss?

I, for one, don't miss the times when everyone smoked. I don't miss clouds of stale cigarette smoke hanging in the air in every public indoor space, dirty ashtrays full of butts, people with reeking tobacco breath. I also don't miss cigarette commercials on TV, although the ads for Benson & Hedges 100's were somewhat amusing.

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And typewriters. Messy ink ribbons, messy correction fluid, messy carbon paper. If you wanted to edit or change something, you had to retype the entire page. I always hated those clunky machines and figured something better would come along eventually.

Anyone have anything else they don't miss?
 
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The Friendly Jewish Ghost said:
Good answer, and one I wouldn't have thought of. In my city we take our pooper-scooper law seriously. You couldn't step in dog poop if you went looking for it.
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It's much better here but you still come across some, Sunday on our morning walk we encountered maybe 3 piles. No doubt early morning walkers. You also get those who think the appropriate place for a bag of it is hanging in a tree.

But still loads better than was when I grew up when some kid used to always seem to have some on their shoes after the walk to school.
 
Optical Discs, I miss CD's, DVD's, Blu-Rays and the progression of Optical Disc technology.

Archival Disc was sold only to Enterprise, but that level of tech was never allowed to be brought to mass consumers.
 
Kamen Rider Blade said:
Optical Discs, I miss CD's, DVD's, Blu-Rays and the progression of Optical Disc technology.

Archival Disc was sold only to Enterprise, but that level of tech was never allowed to be brought to mass consumers.
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Check the thread title again.

The Salt Umpire said:
Civility. Politeness.
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Um, this thread is about things you don't miss. Unless you really prefer people to be uncivil and rude.
 
Although the current situation still has a long way to go, I don't miss the casual racism and sexism (and other -isms and -phobias).
It might not look like it from the press and social media but people in general are a lot more accepting and tolerant than they were 40 or 50 years ago
 
Definitely smoking, and the general attitudes that went along with it. We were watching a movie from the 70's recently and lots of it were set in a hospital and lots of time was spent in a patient recovery ward, and what I found most shocking was a sign on a wall that said: "Smoke if you want to". I'm not even kidding, and it struck me as rather careless in this day and age and it made me realize just how much our attitudes have changed. They also had some scenes with patients smoking in their beds, one of which almost set her bed on fire. Like all of that can't be good for patient recovery. And the general attitudes towards health workers have improved so much as well.
 
Owain Taggart said:
Definitely smoking, and the general attitudes that went along with it. We were watching a movie from the 70's recently and lots of it were set in a hospital and lots of time was spent in a patient recovery ward, and what I found most shocking was a sign on a wall that said: "Smoke if you want to". I'm not even kidding, and it struck me as rather careless in this day and age and it made me realize just how much our attitudes have changed. They also had some scenes with patients smoking in their beds, one of which almost set her bed on fire. Like all of that can't be good for patient recovery. And the general attitudes towards health workers have improved so much as well.
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I had a work colleague around the time of the smoking ban in the Uk who smoked.

Her view was instead of making pubs non smoking those who didn't smoke should go and find somewhere that was non smoking.

I also recall on a work trip, just before the ban. We got allocated our hotel rooms. Mine was on the groundfloor hers was up the stairs on the 1st floor.

She was pregnant at the time and said to me i was being unfair not letting her have the ground floor room. I happily said you can have it, she then realised it was non smoking vs her smoking 1st floor room. Guess which she decided to sleep in.
 
SithHappens said:
Her view was instead of making pubs non smoking those who didn't smoke should go and find somewhere that was non smoking.
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Which I know was hard to do seeing as any restauraunts or food service establishments at the time still had smoking tables in the years of transition until they banned smoking entirely.

As for hospitals, now you can't even smoke within a certain radius of a hospital's property. How times have changed!
 
Faintly Macabre said:
Although the current situation still has a long way to go, I don't miss the casual racism and sexism (and other -isms and -phobias).
It might not look like it from the press and social media but people in general are a lot more accepting and tolerant than they were 40 or 50 years ago
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This would be my #1 answer too. Whenever I hear people wish things could be like how they used to be back in the past, I always think, "Yes, I'm sure it was great back then, as long as you happened to be a straight, white man. For everyone else, not so much."

As you say, though, there's still a long way to go. And unfortunately, there are people in our world who are trying their very best to drag us back to those times. I always thought acceptance would continue on an upward trajectory the more we moved into the future. These days, it seems things are regressing, and we're already in a situation where things are worse than they were previously. And unfortunately I expect the situation to continue to worsen. :(

Owain Taggart said:
How times have changed!
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About 10 years ago, the company I was working for was moving offices. During the cleanup, someone found an old typewritten office memo outlining the office's smoking policies from days gone by. Looking at it from my perspective, it was wild. You could basically smoke at work all you wanted, as long as you used the ashtrays, and put your cigarettes out properly when you were done. I think the thing that stood out the most was that the policy stated that even if you were a non-smoker, you had to remember to leave your company-supplied ashtray on your desk at all times, in consideration of smokers who dropped by to talk to you! :eek:

When were these smoking-positive rules from? The 60s? The 50s? No it was the mid-80s! That just blew me away. I am SO glad I wasn't part of the workforce back then!! :barf2:
 
Avro Arrow said:
About 10 years ago, the company I was working for was moving offices. During the cleanup, someone found an old typewritten office memo outlining the office's smoking policies from days gone by. Looking at it from my perspective, it was wild. You could basically smoke at work all you wanted, as long as you used the ashtrays, and put your cigarettes out properly when you were done. I think the thing that stood out the most was that the policy stated that even if you were a non-smoker, you had to remember to leave your company-supplied ashtray on your desk at all times, in consideration of smokers who dropped by to talk to you! :eek:

When were these smoking-positive rules from? The 60s? The 50s? No it was the mid-80s! That just blew me away. I am SO glad I wasn't part of the workforce back then!! :barf2:
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In many ways, I think the no-smoking rules are still relatively recent. To see so many pro-smoking rules even in the mid 80's is wild though. I think the most of the attitude around smoking changed in the 90's. There was a point in time back then when restaraunts still had ashtrays on the table, often with smoking and non-smoking corners. And I found it surprising at the time that donut shops were among the first to go smoke-free seeing as smokers had made up a lot of their clientele. But I have to think the change in attitude happened in due part to cigarette commercials being banned.
 
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