It's 2025. What things do you miss now that we used to have?

[Faintly Macabre]

Having just been to the supermarket and stared at all the absolute rubbish in the meat aisle, I want proper butchers. I want to be able to buy flank and skirt, not "stewing beef" and "stewing steak". I want steak that comes from beef cattle not elderly dairy cows. I want to be able to choose between best end and scrag end. I want a butcher with a machine that cuts bacon to your required thickness instead of wafer-thin pieces that are so full of salt-and-water you can't fry them....(several pages more of ranting)...

and this from someone who rarely eats meat

 

[Kraig]

Having just been to the supermarket and stared at all the absolute rubbish in the meat aisle, I want proper butchers. I want to be able to buy flank and skirt, not "stewing beef" and "stewing steak". I want steak that comes from beef cattle not elderly dairy cows. I want to be able to choose between best end and scrag end. I want a butcher with a machine that cuts bacon to your required thickness instead of wafer-thin pieces that are so full of salt-and-water you can't fry them....(several pages more of ranting)...

and this from someone who rarely eats meat

My grocery store and Costco both sell regular cuts of beef, there is also a meat market in my small town that has beef. They all employ proper butchers. I usually buy what is on sale, to save money.

 

[Gepard]

Generally, the quality of consumer goods from 20+ years ago. Everything is thinner, lighter, and chintzier now (unless you're willing to pay a lot, if you can even find something built as well as it used to be). Just some recent examples:

My wife and I were looking at souvenir beach towels on vacation; the towels were paper thin and rough.

Modern t-shirts wear out much much faster than stuff I have that's decades old. Even the screen printing wears off faster. One of my coworkers only wears secondhand clothing from the 90s through the early 2000s for this exact reason.

We bought a new metal colander, one that was well reviewed and boasted thick stainless steel construction. It's thinner and flimsier than the one we already have, and has already started to rust. The 15-year-old model is in great shape.

Our newer bedroom trash cans are thinner plastic (much, much thinner) than the similarly sized and shaped trashcan I have from when I was a kid.

Our $1500 custom made couch is showing wear after only 4 years. My parents have 40-year-old Broyhills in better shape.

I know there's survivorship bias when making these kinds of comparisons, but the older products weren't some ultra premium brand or more expensive alternative, they were mainstream products bought by middle-class families. This was just the quality you bought when you went to go buy things. It's concerning how badly quality has degraded.

 

[Kraig]

The foot activated car headlight high - low beam switch on the floor under the emergency brake, instead of where they are currently located on the steering column.

 

[The Friendly Jewish Ghost]

The foot activated car headlight high - low beam switch on the floor under the emergency brake, instead of where they are currently located on the steering column.

That's one thing I don't miss at all. I always thought that was a stupid place for the high-beam/low-beam switch. I've always had manual-transmission cars and I need my left foot free for the clutch pedal.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I miss gas stations where the attendant would come out and fill up your tank, wash your windshield and check your oil while you waited in the car.
That was being phased out as I was growing up and I think was gone completely by the late 70s/early 80s; except for Oregon and New Jersey.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I miss gas stations where the attendant would come out and fill up your tank, wash your windshield and check your oil while you waited in the car.
That was being phased out as I was growing up and I think was gone completely by the late 70s/early 80s; except for Oregon and New Jersey.

We have native gas stations around here that have a lower price than most, and one of them in particular has an interesting solution to that, in asking people to pay a dollar extra for full service, and I think it's a great idea. Wish more places would make that a policy.

 

[Candlicious Ghost]

Generally, the quality of consumer goods from 20+ years ago. Everything is thinner, lighter, and chintzier now (unless you're willing to pay a lot, if you can even find something built as well as it used to be). Just some recent examples:

Welcome to "enshitification" That's how most things are now and it is truly shitty

 

[Kraig]

Being able to easily change the battery on my cell phone.

 

[Candlicious Ghost]

Being able to easily change the battery on my cell phone.

Yeah that's on my list of "if I could change one thing" I don't know why that became such a huge burden for phone makers

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Being able to easily change the battery on my cell phone.

Yeah that's on my list of "if I could change one thing" I don't know why that became such a huge burden for phone makers

That happened to me a little over a year ago.
The battery on my cell phone wouldn't hold a charge, so, I went to Batteries+ to replace the battery.
It was going to cost more to replace the battery than to go to the local phone store and get a new phone and new plan.
So, I just went ahead and got the latest model and a cheaper plan.

 

[Kraig]

Yeah that's on my list of "if I could change one thing" I don't know why that became such a huge burden for phone makers

Planned obsolescence is a feature, not a bug.

That happened to me a little over a year ago.
The battery on my cell phone wouldn't hold a charge, so, I went to Batteries+ to replace the battery.
It was going to cost more to replace the battery than to go to the local phone store and get a new phone and new plan.
So, I just went ahead and got the latest model and a cheaper plan.

It wouldn't be so expensive to replace the battery, if the smartphone manufacturer provided a battery compartment that I could open myself, without tools, instead of a phone that is glued shut, and requires a trip to a repair technician to change it out.

 

[Candlicious Ghost]

Planned obsolescence is a feature, not a bug.
View attachment 49435

Fucking brilliant!

I see what you did

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I think I miss far too much lately.

 

[Aragorn]

TiVo has stopped selling DVRs.

TiVo has sold its last DVR

The company is killing its hardware business, 26 years after becoming synonymous with TV recording.

www.theverge.com

Although I still use mine (might've been their only model where you didn't have to subscribe to anything). I can record the show over the air, watch while using the "skip commercials" option, and don't have to wait until the middle of the night for the program to appear on streaming.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Generally, the quality of consumer goods from 20+ years ago. Everything is thinner, lighter, and chintzier now (unless you're willing to pay a lot, if you can even find something built as well as it used to be). Just some recent examples:

Same great price, less product!

Definitely agree. Another recent example is the line of Celebration cookies in Canada. These used to be extremely popular enough to spawn knockoffs. Enter tariffs and prices rising, so what do they do? The company recent redesigned their package to sell a lesser amount of cookies for the same price, and not just a few less. Where before they were a box with a long tray, now the tray itself has been cut in half and sold at the same price as before. They had a great thing going and now it's not a brand we'll likely buy anymore because of their changes.

 

[HIjol]

chintzier

I miss words like this!!!

Or, maybe I am just an Old F-er who remembers words no one uses, any more…

 

[Aragorn]

Generally, the quality of consumer goods from 20+ years ago. Everything is thinner, lighter, and chintzier now (unless you're willing to pay a lot, if you can even find something built as well as it used to be).

Imagine if people bought a new fridge every year like they do smart phones.

Also, planned obsolescence is greater now than ever.

 

[Toril Toran]

They build these things NOT to last so you have to buy a new one every four or five years. It’s just corporate greed.

 

[Verteron]

I miss this

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