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

[Gepard]

Sitting through television commercials. Thanks to DVRs plus streaming, it's possible to effectively cut them out of your life entirely.

Smog. Not that there still isn't any, but stricter emissions standards mean noticably cleaner air.

Cassette and VHS tapes. Who doesn't love media that wears out as you use it, and has awful fidelity? Sorry, the 80s, but that's one bit of nostalgia I won't fall for.

 

[Set Harth]

It just occurred to me, I can't not remember a time having a teacher who didn't smoke.
I would go to the main office, and the teacher's lounge would be filled with teacher's on their break, smoking.

The only time I can remember a teacher smoking was this time in grad school when I went to a guy's office and he was smoking up a storm in there.

 

[scotpens]

Smog. Not that there still isn't any, but stricter emissions standards mean noticeably cleaner air.

Tell me about it. I remember heading north on the 405 freeway, coming over the crest of Sepulveda Pass and seeing the San Fernando Valley spread out before me -- with a thick brown haze hanging in the air. The city would regularly issue SigAlerts warning people to stay indoors as much as possible because the air quality was so bad. Thanks to California's strict air pollution controls, the air has improved markedly since then. I do miss smog jokes, though.

And while we're on the subject of car-related stuff, here are some features of American cars that I don't miss: Tacky fake wood on the dashboard and interior. Cheesy-looking stamped aluminum wheel covers. Soft, wallowy suspension. Numb power steering with no road feel. Cars so goddamn big you could land a helicopter on the rear deck.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Tell me about it. I remember heading north on the 405 freeway, coming over the crest of Sepulveda Pass and seeing the San Fernando Valley spread out before me -- with a thick brown haze hanging in the air. The city would regularly issue SigAlerts warning people to stay indoors as much as possible because the air quality was so bad. Thanks to California's strict air pollution controls, the air has improved markedly since then. I do miss smog jokes, though.

I remember flying into Denver in the mid nineties to visit my Mom and Wink and the city was in the middle of one of those inversion layers and driving from the airport to Winter Park on I-70, the city was blanketed in this cloud of smog.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

I remember flying into Denver in the mid nineties to visit my Mom and Wink and the city was in the middle of one of those inversion layers and driving from the airport to Winter Park on I-70, the city was blanketed in this cloud of smog.

When we lived on March AFB in California we'd drive to visit relatives in Santa Barbara on the coast. That meant driving thru LA and at times smog was so bad my eyes hurt. I don't miss that at all. Dad's big Fury was big enough to land a Cub on. It sure was quiet and comfy.

 

[Oddish]

Driving behind a truck, and getting a nose full of that vile sulfur stink. Same with driving past certain factories. Thank the Maker for anti-pollution laws.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Driving behind a truck, and getting a nose full of that vile sulfur stink. Same with driving past certain factories. Thank the Maker for anti-pollution laws.

That reminds me.
Up until the early/mid 2000s, there was a paper/pulp mill on I-5 and the smell it produced was dubbed the "Aroma of Tacoma".
It smelled like rotting eggs/sulfur.
At one point it was so bad, Bruce Springsteen, who was playing in the Tacoma Dome in the mid-eighties, cut his concert short because the smell in the Dome was so bad it was making him and his band mates sick.

 

[The Salt Umpire]

That reminds me.
Up until the early/mid 2000s, there was a paper/pulp mill on I-5 and the smell it produced was dubbed the "Aroma of Tacoma".
It smelled like rotting eggs/sulfur.
At one point it was so bad, Bruce Springsteen, who was playing in the Tacoma Dome in the mid-eighties, cut his concert short because the smell in the Dome was so bad it was making him and his band mates sick.

I used to drive to a city with a paper mill for my job. I would start smelling it about 20 minutes before I got to the city. I refused to live there because of the smell.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Apparently acid rain was a big thing in my area back in the 80s. My country worked with the United States, we signed some agreements, the problem was fixed, and acid rain hasn’t been a thing for decades.

Fortunately governments at the time were interested in at least trying to make things better.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That reminds me.
Up until the early/mid 2000s, there was a paper/pulp mill on I-5 and the smell it produced was dubbed the "Aroma of Tacoma".
It smelled like rotting eggs/sulfur.
At one point it was so bad, Bruce Springsteen, who was playing in the Tacoma Dome in the mid-eighties, cut his concert short because the smell in the Dome was so bad it was making him and his band mates sick.

I live in a mining town and when the wind flows just right, you can smell the sulfure coming off the stack. It was far worse prior to the 70's when the stack got built, where the sulfur would hang low to the ground and ravage the landscape killing much of the vegetation in the area. The area got a bad rap and a myth that astronauts were visiting because the area looked like a blackened moonscape. In reality, Apollo 17 astronauts did come here to train, not because of how it looked, but because of the types of rock that could potentially inform them of what to look for on the moon due to impact, and it did help them and we ended up getting a shoutout by one of the astronauts in one of their broadcasts.

So, to tie it back into this thread, I'll say I definitely don't miss the blackened landscape. Mining processes have changed a whole lot in the days since and the two local companies have given back to the community by innovating to find ways to regreen the landscape, a process that is now used worldwide. There are before and after comparisons online and the differences are quite shocking.

 

[Kor]

That reminds me.
Up until the early/mid 2000s, there was a paper/pulp mill on I-5 and the smell it produced was dubbed the "Aroma of Tacoma".
It smelled like rotting eggs/sulfur.
At one point it was so bad, Bruce Springsteen, who was playing in the Tacoma Dome in the mid-eighties, cut his concert short because the smell in the Dome was so bad it was making him and his band mates sick.

I wonder if that's in the new Springsteen biopic movie.

Kor

 

[Pondwater]

Those stretch pants that say “JUICY” on the back of them.

 

[Mommy]

I don't miss the use of some racial slurs in casual language. It was so much more common-place in, say, the 80's. I mean some are still used (by some folks I guess), but some are so much less used, (I don't care to share which ones I've noticed are used much less nowadays).

 

[Ovation]

Who doesn't love media that wears out as you use it, and has awful fidelity?

So vinyl?

I don’t miss putting gas in my car, oil changes, noisy, rattling engines…

 

[SithHappens]

I don't miss the use of some racial slurs in casual language. It was so much more common-place in, say, the 80's. I mean some are still used (by some folks I guess), but some are so much less used, (I don't care to share which ones I've noticed are used much less nowadays).

I think there is less but do you not think when those slurs are used today it's meant (mostly) differently?

In my opinion through the 80s a lot of the use of those slurs was down to ignorance. And while I don't excuse that, I think today while they may be used less there is more venom and hatred behind them when they are used.

Of course I'm a white guy so I'm quite prepared to be told I'm talking rubbish because I know I've never been subjected to such language. It is my observation though, although maybe it's that I notice it more today than I used to than when I was a teenager with my head stuck up my ass.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I would imagine much of that would be regional.

 

[Mudd]

I do rather miss casual smoking. That's how old I am.

What don't I miss? Visiting a bank and standing in line to do, you know, bank stuff. In the same vein, writing and mailing checks in envelopes to pay my bills.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Paper job applications.

On top of the constant use of online applications, something new popped up in 2024 that never popped up before when applying to jobs -- the scourge known as Paradox AI. Any company using Paradox AI, not only doesn't have paper application alternatives, but there isn't even an online application. You go to the site, hit the application button, a chat box opens up. You think you made a mistake or it's an annoying pop up trying to help you, so you close it and try again. Goddamn chatbox opens back up.

No.
It's not a mistake.
There is no online application, you deal with an A.I. chatbot which asks ultimately for your phone number to have someone call you to arrange an interview. There is no way around it. If you do not have a smart phone with current phone service, you cannot apply. They don't "hire", they "onboard" you, like a cog in the wheel.

Companies so far I have found use Paradox AI:

Aramark
Outback Steakhouse
Longhorn Steakhouse
Papa Johns
Olive Garden

Go check it out for yourself. I decided at one point to just use ... colorful metaphors with the A.I.,m which is then censored, but I found quick ways around that. Instead of "Fuck", I could type "Fu(k". Instead of a regular American "A", I could go to the character map in Windows and find a different "A", so "Asshole" could get threw.


Two temporary employment agencies here are also phone only, can't apply to work.

 

[Owain Taggart]

What don't I miss? Visiting a bank and standing in line to do, you know, bank stuff.

I actually prefer it. I prefer dealing with an actual person. The only downside is that at least at my bank, they don't have as many tellers on duty and they always seem to be busy with long transactions. Even when the bank doesn't seem to be all that busy, it can take a long time to get things done just due to how slow everything is on any given day. I once waited over an hour before walking out without doing anything.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I went into a bank I had been to long in the past, and they had re-designed it to make it "modern" and there was this ugly box-y look and only two teller windows, no one in line, I didn't even see employees.

Years back we had a "Bank" with only computers and no employees (just a guy behind there to run things that you could not see). It went under. Turns out people didn't like that.