When you connect a new device to a ‘smart’ tv, you must pay homage to the manufacturer with a ritualistic dance. Plugging and unplugging the device. Turning them on and off in the correct sequence like entering a konami code.

Every time you want to switch devices, the tv must scan for them. And god forbid you lose power, or unplug something. You are granted the delight experience of doing it all over again.

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

What is some other tech that used to be better?

  • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    2171·
    6 months ago

    The internet.

    The internet of the 90s was wild, creative, and not as accessible. We dreamed that as it grew and became more accessible, a utopia of information and creativity would flourish.

    Instead we got a bland, corporate wasteland, and free soapboxes for every shithead out there.

  • BOFH666@lemmy.world
    1299·
    6 months ago

    Cars.

    • mechanical, no software bugs
    • physical buttons, no touch screen
    • everything just worked, no need to license the heating of your chair
    • freaking lane assist

    You get it…

    • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
      633·
      6 months ago

      Much safer now though. Traffic accidents are much less lethal nowadays (except SUV/Truck vs ped)

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
          92·
          6 months ago

          Lane assist and being able to control shit via voice or steering wheel buttons absolutely has helped with safety though. While lane assist is not going to completely prevent you from serving off the road if you pass out, it will happen much less often. Of course you should not drive while tired but people still do pretty often. Being able to change a radio station or call someone from steering wheel buttons is a hell of a lot safer than fiddling with a radio dial or searching for a CD/cassette to play. A girl in my high school died doing that one.

          Seat heating was not really a thing in anything but luxury models until pretty recently.

          I do agree about replacing controls with a touchscreen though. Fuck that. That is absolutely less safe than having tactile feedback.

          • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
            52·
            6 months ago

            The problem you’ve addressed is that too many people should not be driving or doing what they’re doing while they’re driving. All these safety features are really just ‘I’m too distracted to pay attention to operating a motor vehicle’ features.

            There absolutely is some technology that’s been beneficial. But the cat has been let out of the bag and people are losing the choice to safely operate a car on their own.

            • SeaJ@lemm.ee
              2·
              6 months ago

              Yeah, it turns out humans be humaning. We are not robots. You have the option to safely operate a car on your own but if you so happen to have an issue where you cannot operate one safely in the moment, the safety features help you out. You can still operate a vehicle with lane assist and not even notice that it is enabled. You also have the ability to turn it off. You can also still operate a vehicle with adaptive cruise control enabled and not even notice it if you are shaky operating the vehicle properly. These features do not prevent people from operating a vehicle safely on their own. They are there because a fuck ton of people cannot and never have been able to. The past driver mortality rate which was higher when these safety features were not an option is clear evidence of that.

              Again, if you are indeed a robot and have never had an issue of going over the lines or going above the speed limit or ever checked your rear view mirror at an inopportune time when someone in front of you is slamming on their brakes, you can still operate a vehicle just the same as you would if they were not there. Hell, you can also simply disable them. But those safety features are there for the rest of us that recognize that shit happens.

              Now I will certainly agree that many people should not be driving. I believe that you should have a hell of a lot more practice than six months of driver’s education and passing a very simple test once to be able to drive for the rest of your life. I also recognize that driving is a requirement for many people to work. I welcome alternatives to driving but it is not a reality yet. The increase in safety features helps minimize death and injury in the current reality.

              • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
                4·
                6 months ago

                operate a vehicle with lane assist and not even notice that it is enabled.

                I see this as the problem. We’re becoming more reliant on robots to accomplish basic tasks. If the mode of transportation is fully automated - fine. But that is not the case, yet. It’s still the licensed driver’s responsibility if there’s a crash. You can’t tell a judge your robot made a mistake.

                You know how they say Gen Alpha doesn’t know how to turn on a computer or use a file system? It’s like that. We can’t just give the robots full control of our lives. We should know the basics of operating a car, of being aware of our surroundings, of how to instinctively make a split second decision.

                I’ll offer a compromise. There should be two (or more) levels of operating licenses. If you want your car to do everything for you, you do not have the same permissions as someone who knows how to fully drive a car. This means you’re unable to rent or borrow a car that requires your full attention. At least this creates some sort of stricter legal ramification when someone who’s been dependent upon driver assist features for a decade and gets behind the wheel of a “dumb” car and kills someone because they don’t know how to merge onto a highway. Frankly, we could benefit from this premise on existing drivers and vehicles today.

            • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
              21·
              6 months ago

              Even the most reliable drivers overlook something, get distracted by something on the road or in the car. These features absolutely help more than they harm.

        • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
          2·
          6 months ago

          Of course not, what makes you think anything i said is even vaguely related to those negative cherry picks?

          Is car manufacturing and design not tech?

          Do impact detection, brake assist/auto brake, modern lane assist, distance detection etc not add to safety? I could probably rattle on

      • ephemeral_gibbon@aussie.zone
        7·
        6 months ago

        Over the past 5 years the monthly road deaths here in aus have been going up, because of the prevalence of those massive cars

        • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
          2·
          6 months ago

          Yeah tbh there would be no harm in banning them. If you need a work truck, those are fine. No person in the world needs an SUV or an oversized pickup truck

            • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
              1·
              5 months ago

              Not sure who would ever need an SUV, especially in an urban env. Most of the common ones have zero off roading capabilities either, so work vehicles are usually specialised.

              Thanks for the link though, I’ll forward it :)

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      244·
      6 months ago

      mechanical, no software bugs

      This is a matter of perspective and shifting skill set demographics

      From the perspective and skill sets of a old school mechanic/gear head who classically never really liked “tech stuff” yes that’s a problem.

      From the perspective and skill sets of, say someone like me who’s really into the “tech stuff”, but old school mechanical cars were never interesting are excited about some of the tech in cars, bugs be damned.

      You might have gotten excited to figure out and fix what that “Weird knocking” was mechanically where as I would have just thrown my hands up and gone “Fuck. Now I gotta take it to the mechanic”.

      Now the roles are reversed, now you might be pissed to see the car show “ERROR CODE 73997” whereas I am more likely to have fun diagnosing it “the tech way”. Plugging in my laptop, delving through logs etc. in the end I might still need to take it to a mechanic when the fix is something ultimately mechanical, but I sure as hell would have had a lot more fun with it and maybe even a little security against scrupulous mechanics.

      Tl;Dr The car heads time is over, the time for the nerds to take over cars has come!

      The rest, subscription seats, being locked out of manuals and diagnostic tools by the manufacturer etc are a whole different thing and can fuck ALLL the way off

      • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        312·
        6 months ago

        The bigger problem is, being ALLOWED to plug in your laptop and delve through the logs.

        The right to repair has died with manufacturers following in Tesla footsteps, who is following the guidebook from apple.

        • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          411·
          6 months ago

          See my post. They can hardly fuck up the standard OBDII interface without huge repercussions for the industry.

          • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            152·
            6 months ago

            They definitely can. The Chevy volt complies to the standard, but anything outside (ie to do with the battery diagnostics, or electric propulsion system) is behind a completely different protocol where most normal readers won’t read.

            Considering how every company is trying to paywall everything, I don’t doubt they’ll continue to push the “limit” further and further from any standard.

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
            82·
            6 months ago

            Yea, this has been an issue for 20 years, at least.

            Manufacturers make it difficult as possible to retrieve any more than basic codes.

            It’s the constant cat-and-mouse game, and why I bought a very expensive code reader 15 years ago.

          • Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works
            6·
            6 months ago

            My friend, look up dodges asinine “security” gateway.

            In some models you have to strip the dash to remove the entire head unit to get to the two extra plugs, not to mention having to have a compatible scan tool - $$$$

          • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
            24·
            6 months ago

            Man people on the Internet need to not engage with cars as much, they’re clearly ignorant about them and have single instance counterpoints that clearly negate the fact you’ve put out there.

            I swear by my OBD2 readouts, and my friends think I’m a wizard with a thousand dollar tool, rather than a dingus with a dongle, when I tell them what’s wrong with their vehicles.

            I can’t believe you’re being dumped on for having a fact about the industry

      • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        The original Volkswagen Beetle was specifically designed for literally anyone to work on it.

        While cars have had computers in them since the 1970s, they were still easily diagnosed by almost anyone with a basic education (most people took a basic automotive class in high school). If you could fix a lawnmower, you could fix a car.

        Now cars are just rolling computers. Mr. Nerd, how often do you upgrade your computer? And how long do you anticipate Teslas remaining on the road? Aren’t they all doomed to the scrap yard in 10-15 years?

        You can still work on older cars. They may be less safe, they may cause more pollution. But in the context you’re arguing, I can’t say you’ve presented a compelling case.

        Moreover, consumer demand for distraction has driven (so to speak) the popularity of cars and other gadgets to do the thinking for us. A brief example is how often my Uber driver takes a wrong turn into another state because he’s unfamiliar with the city and relying on his phone. A taxi driver would never make that mistake because they’re knowledgeable and able to think for themselves.

        I’ll pick a dumb device 9 times out of 10.

        • cm0002@lemmy.world
          41·
          6 months ago

          Mr. Nerd, how often do you upgrade your computer?

          Depends, systems that I routinely push enough computational demand through? every couple years (Or at least some part it if applicable) is about average.

          The laptop I keep in my room for light research/gaming/general computing/remoting into other systems? When it breaks.

          Phones? Whenever I see something compelling enough, every year for awhile until I was on the OnePlus 8T for 3 years before the Pixel Fold dropped

          And how long do you anticipate Teslas remaining on the road? Aren’t they all doomed to the scrap yard in 10-15 years?

          Yes, but it has nothing to do with the on board computers and everything to do with Tesla’s shit quality in general

          I could just as easily drudge up old ICE “minimal computers” cars that only lasted “10-15 years” because of similar issues

          You can still work on older cars. They may be less safe, they may cause more pollution. But in the context you’re arguing, I can’t say you’ve presented a compelling case.

          Thanks to better higher precision machining tech and the “computers” working together to significantly decrease wear & tear, newer cars can regularly exceed 200k miles as long as it makes it past the first few years and decently maintained. The older cars you see lasting today are the rare exception, not the rule. Many many of a models “brethren” died LONG ago, well short of 200k miles.

          They also cost more long term to, in both fuel economy (The “computers” have far greater control over the engine and associated parts, to more easily achieve better fuel efficiency) and repair costs (In both your time spent repairing (your time is valuable to ya know) and in parts) because they are also far more prone to regularly breaking down.

          Moreover, consumer demand for distraction has driven (so to speak) the popularity of cars and other gadgets to do the thinking for us. A brief example is how often my Uber driver takes a wrong turn into another state because he’s unfamiliar with the city and relying on his phone. A taxi driver would never make that mistake because they’re knowledgeable and able to think for themselves.

          That’s an entirely different problem to the discussion, but also a classic “That new fangled gizmo, kids these days don’t learn the REAL ways!!!”

          I’ll pick a dumb device 9 times out of 10.

          That’s fine, car computerization (as far as engine/motor/transmission control go; infotainment systems and subscription heated seats are a whole different problem) is here to stay, the young car heads/mechanics coming up behind you are learning the newer ways regardless. There are fewer and fewer of this stuck in the past mindset every year and every year these older cars get harder and harder to find as they die.

          • jmf@lemm.ee
            1·
            6 months ago

            Until some open standards are made for car computerization, it will continue to be used as a tool to keep you as a consumer dependent on the company’s good will and certified technicians. It is so much easier to lock a silly little consumer out of a digital system with closed source and obfuscation than a mechanical one, if both systems have a way to be serviced. When this status quo changes, I will finally give up my old 20+ year old cars. As of now, they are reliable as long as I keep up with their routine maintenance, and they dont track me, monitor me, or lock me out when i need to get something changed or modified. - gen Z system admin

            • cm0002@lemmy.world
              1·
              6 months ago

              Yea but where’s the fun in that? Part of the fun is worming your way through those (Usually laughable) security measures and hacking through. When the white paper came out about the Jeep Uconnect vulnerabilities I used that to eventually take near total control.

              I even have the patched firmware on the canbus interface chip in the infotainment system that Chrysler was so kind as to wire it into all sorts of stuff and give it privileges it didn’t need lol (That’s what those articles were talking about when the researchers were able to get the brakes to stop working)

              Right to repair legislation is also alive and well, state after state are passing them, even Apple themselves has been having to soften their stance over the years

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        6 months ago

        For anyone like OP here, get a BT device that plugs in the computer. Then get the Android app, free but worth paying for if you want more bells and whistles. I had a hacked version but was so pleased I bought it to always have on future phones.

        You can see and lookup engine codes, see what’s wrong with your car. It kind of a trip what all it does. I’m not gearhead, but when the car acts up, I can get a clue. Also clears annoying gremlin lights.

        For $6 I consider it a “must have”. While you’re at it, get an air pump that plugs in the cigarette lighter. Saved me tons of hassle.

    • Drusas@kbin.run
      131·
      6 months ago

      Cars are one of the first thing I would use as an example of something that’s gotten better. Heated seats, heated steering wheels, better safety ratings, better comfort, power windows, power steering, ABS, backup cameras, adaptive cruise control…

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
        41·
        6 months ago

        Uh cars now have subscription services for various features. You dont just get whats in the car when you buy it second hand, you still have to pay to use those features.

        Repair costs are stupdily expensive in comparison, and require significant diagnostic tools to do simple things because everything in your car has a sensor in it.

        And cars are now spying on you to your insurance company because you dont actually get to decide if they are allowed to use your data or not

        Sure cars have a lot more features, but they used to just work

        • Drusas@kbin.run
          2·
          6 months ago

          Oh, I agree with your complaints. But that doesn’t change that cars offer a much more comfortable and convenient experience today than they did in my youth.

          • Jarix@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 months ago

            Reread what i wrote and thought about it today.

            What message im hoping to say is its all downhill from here. Autopilot and AI will be crammed into every piece of tech imaginable and car manufacturers tech has always been trash, I dont know what its going to look like at the bottom but weve gone over the cliff already and we wont know what its gonna look like in 15 years, but we will dream of what we have today.

            Ill bet you 1 dollar im not wrong

    • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      A lot of the modern tech is really good, though.

      Cars are way more reliable than they were. They get way better gas mileage. They have a shitload more power (this is actually a con due to how everyone else drives these days). They’re way safer in both accidents and just general driving with traction control and lane departure warnings.

      So it’s a real mixed bag. But I’d rather have the cars of today.

      • pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        6 months ago

        The only thing that used to be better was more physical buttons. And it looks like the EU will be pushing for that to return (requiring more physical buttons for the highest security rating).

        • Drusas@kbin.run
          1·
          6 months ago

          I also prefer the old style heat/AC bar over the modern style where you set a temperature number. What’s the point of setting a temperature number when the car doesn’t actually maintain or output that particular temperature? For example, if it’s 70° out and I set my temperature control to 70°, it might blast cold air at me or hot air. It’s a crapshoot. The old style bar, you just set how warm or cool the air was that’s coming out of the vents and it didn’t change based on external temperature. So much simpler.

          But yeah, non-physical buttons are both inconvenient and hazardous.

      • HouseWolf@lemm.eeEnglish
        81·
        6 months ago

        Yeah pretty much.

        Unless you want to build your own car from the ground up, which you can do in most places if it passes safety regulations. But that takes time, money, workspace and knowing what you’re even doing.

      • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        I just bought a 2013 Mini Copper. The tech is relatively limited but I have to admit there are some ergonomic issues - specifically with the lights, wipers, and radio controls. I installed a phone holder but I’m almost regretting it. I’m trying to retrain myself to not rely on gps for everything. Like, I shouldn’t need gps to tell me how to get to my mom’s house where I’ve driven to hundreds of times.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
      3·
      6 months ago

      And also:

      • No exhaust filters
      • Leaded fuel
      • No crash safety because rigid frames
      • Wat is errbeck?

      Yeah no sorry, as shitty as the software side of cars has become, the hardware is much advanced. And overall cars have become much better, though the recent trend towards SUVs gas removed a lot of those gains as we needlessly buy pricier and less safe cars that use more energy. 🤷 But that’s on us consumers, tons of non-SUVs to buy, we’re just not buying them.

    • neidu2@feddit.nl
      2·
      6 months ago

      This is why I’m still driving my 1996 Volvo 940. I can fix most things on it myself (and I’m not even mechanically inclined), and it doesn’t have a boot time.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
        142·
        6 months ago

        Meanwhile, I have a car with a big touchscreen, and few physical buttons and it clearly doesn’t work.

        Here, with the exact same ammount of evidence you presented I proved you wrong!

        Back in Not-idiot land however, we know that neither one of us have proved anything, we are both presenting claims, with zero verifiable facts, which at best should be treated as unverified antecdotes.

      • brlemworld@lemmy.world
        22·
        6 months ago

        Not sure why you are getting down voted. I have a Tesla and agree. Now if you had that piece of shit Toyota EV (bzssrt?) then maybe I would agree with OP.

        • coffinwood@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          6 months ago

          What I wanted to say is that a car’s quality doesn’t solely depend on if it’s got touch or physical controls but on **how ** good or bad they’re done. OP overly generalised that.

  • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
    93·
    6 months ago

    Buttons.

    Everything used to have buttons and switches for things. You knew when you activated something because you could feel the button getting pressed.

    • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
      13·
      6 months ago

      That’s the main reason I stick with OnePlus. The notification slider is a feature the I need on every phone.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldΕλληνικά
        1·
        5 months ago

        Switched to OP after LG dropped out. I’m basically pro “anything but apple and Samsung” but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my Pro 9. Hands down the best phone I’ve ever used. My only real complaint is that after 3 years, the battery doesn’t make it all day every day, but its easy enough to carry a battery bank, or just pop it on the charger for 10 minutes and get 40% of the battery back.

    • Zahille7@lemmy.world
      9·
      6 months ago

      Retrofuturism, fuck yeah. I have a major soft spot for stuff like that because of movies like Aliens and Star Wars.

      • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
        7·
        6 months ago

        Not even that, I just want a fucking keyboard on my phone again, and for actual buttons in my car so I can feel when I change the song on the radio or whatever.

      • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
        71·
        6 months ago

        It’s not just a “soft spot” thing though - the tactile confirmation of a button press is life and death if you’re driving a car.

          • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
            5·
            6 months ago

            I mean looking down at a touch screen that offers no tactile feedback is dangerous. And feeling a button click that your muscle memory can intuitively find is not.

      • MindTraveller@lemmy.caEnglish
        31·
        6 months ago

        In Star Trek Voyager, pilot Tom Paris creates a custom shuttlecraft called the Delta Flyer. Tom’s a history geek who spends his holodeck time repairing antique muscle cars from the 20th century. So naturally, he designs the Delta Flyer with lots of analogue switches and dials instead of the usual Starfleet Okudagram touch screens. He thinks they’re much better.

    • los_chill@programming.devEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      Whoever thought a touchscreen is the optimal way to interact with a wearable fitness device while running and drenched in sweat is really dumb. Just give a couple buttons, I can’t fucking swipe while moving like that.

  • thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish
    851·
    6 months ago

    I know this is a cop-out because of the vast number of other improvements to devices and infrastructure, but I really liked having a seemingly indestructible phone with a removable 10-day battery and an absolute death grip on that 2g/3g network.

      • rubicon@lemmy.ca
        8·
        6 months ago

        I kept using my LG G5 for years after I might have upgraded just for the swappable batteries.

      • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        6 months ago

        Have you tried the fairphone?every component, including the batteries are easy to swap. Only issue is that it’s a midperformance phone costing the price of a high end Huawei/Sony (Samsung and Apple prices are just straight robbery)

        • Programmer Belch@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          I’m eyeing a fairphone or a pixel (graphene) when Europe makes swappable batteries the standard. Until then, I hope my phone keeps on working, I don’t change phone unless my last one dies.

    • coffinwood@discuss.tchncs.de
      23·
      6 months ago

      Why swap a 10 day battery anyway? What’s the use case here? I mean in the last decade I had not a single phone die on me with an empty battery. That’s one day battery life or more, so why 10 days and have it (hot) swappable? I understand that on a hike or while camping outlets and wall chargers are off limit. But there are so good alternatives to having an immensely dense battery in the phone that you don’t also have to carry all the time.

      • Bongles@lemm.ee
        7·
        6 months ago

        Being able to swap a battery to keep a phone working well for a few more years makes sense.

        • coffinwood@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          6 months ago

          Oh you mean replace. Swap means (for me) to switch from one battery to another on the go. Of course, replacing batteries in any appliance should be easy and cheap. Maybe not necessarily being performed by the customer.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      27·
      6 months ago

      I hate this so much. I had to call a clinic the other day to ask about medical test results. None of the options on the menu were for that. So I clicked 1 for appointments. Then my options were to reschedule an appointment or to cancel an appointment. No option to go back. I clicked 0 and it hung up on me. Called back, clicked schedule an appointment and it told me to hang up and go online. Fuck me.

    • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      4·
      6 months ago

      CVS has a speech recognition system that just won’t forward me to a damn human.

      And the nerve of them to constantly berate you about using the app, when I’m calling because the apps not working.

    • aard@kyu.de
      74·
      6 months ago

      I’m fine with that. I don’t want to talk with people - I just want an email address to write to.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
      2·
      6 months ago

      Tbf in many countries you still get this. The Nordics is night and day compared to the U.K. where I live now. You get a local number, a local email and someone who works at that office actually responds and is enabled to make decisions.

      It’s a trust thing.

  • sparr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    703·
    6 months ago

    Instant messaging.

    20 years ago, there were half a dozen competing major platforms (AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, etc), like today.

    The difference is that you had your choice of half a dozen clients that could each talk to ALL of the platforms. Adium, Trillian, Kopete, etc.

    Today’s kids have no idea what we lost to the god of profit.

    • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
      103·
      6 months ago

      I feel like AIM was the de facto god-emperor of IM platforms and the rest were just also-rans.

      Maybe that was just my experience tho, but I feel like ICQ and IRC were older but more clunky, MSN and Yahoo were newer or contemporary but less dependable and had less buy in from the community.

      • Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world
        10·
        6 months ago

        Maybe it’s just my personal era, but MSN/Messenger was used solely in the group I grew up around. With maybe an addition of trillium eventually

        • lluki@feddit.org
          4·
          6 months ago

          In my bubble, MSN was the first messenger used by non-nerds. For me it was the third messenger after IRC and ICQ that i really used. Nerds were on IRC, Gamers on ICQ

    • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
      82·
      6 months ago

      Text Messages killed instant message programs. Same “format”, but infinitely portable and won’t crash out your full screen game when you get a new message.

    • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
      10·
      6 months ago

      I still regularly use my iPod. Going on 20 years old! I’ve replaced the battery and swapped the hdd with an sd card.

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
    52·
    6 months ago

    I feel like the problem is less with the technology itself and more with some of the stuff within and around it. So let me list my favourite bugbears:

    • Buttons!

    Here’s the thing about buttons and knobs: they are definite. When you press them, you KNOW you pressed them, you can use your finger to feel for them without activating other stuff by accident. Back in the day with my cheap-ass chinese MP3 player, I could change tracks and playlists without taking it out of my pocket just by using tact and muscle memory.

    Nowadays with my smartphone even something as basic as skipping a track requires me to take it out and unlock the screen. It’s like. Sure, the phone does a lot more stuff, and can stream stuff from the internet so I don’t have to download every track (even if I keep a local library for my favourites in ogg format), it has bluetooth for wireless headphones, a lot of good shit – But that little bit of user experience is just dead and buried.

    Heck, my older sister tells me she used to text her friends in class without taking her phone off her pocket. Imagine! IMAGINE typing a text on one of those old phone number pads, just by muscle memory and tact! It may not be the ideal user experience, but holy shit, it was possible! Try doing anything even close to blind typing on a modern smartphone.

    Another point: when something goes unresponsive on a device with just a touchscreen, you experience a confusing and annoying experience as all you have feedback-wise is the screen and sometimes it freezes and you’re swiping and tapping and just praying something happens.

    When a computer with keys and buttons goes unresponsive you can do the three-fingered-salute and that usually gets it to do something, and because the keyboard is a physical object, it can’t be hidden from you by a crashed OS.

    Nowadays even kitchen appliances are dropping buttons and knobs. My parents’ dishwasher is all touch-buttons, sometimes they brush against it while walking around the kitchen and lo and behold, their butt pauses the washing cycle. Something that wouldn’t be an issue with a much cheaper set of regular-ass buttons.

    To say nothing of cars and the horrid security issue that fusing a tablet to the dashboard and replacing every control with just that has proven to be.

    • Customization!

    Used to be, Windows 9x let you change every colour of your UI right from the built-in settings app and came with a dozen colorschemes built-in, and Windows XP came with three built-in themes and could with just some changing around (you replaced like ONE dll file, a single copypaste), support themes that totally changed the look of the OS. Nowadays you get “White” and “Black” and that’s it.

    And like, that’s windows, a corporate-ass proprietary system for corporate jerks – But even Linux – Linux! the darling of nerds who like to change everything in their computers (like me!) has caught this illness – And you’ll see people defending this. Saying that having no theming support and only having users be able to change highlight colours if even that is the “right way” to do it.

    On the note of customization – In the back-then times, chat applications let you set fonts and colours to give your messages “your look”, and your friends could do the same. – Fuck! The application me and my mates used for playing RPGs by text back in the early 10s supported not just font colours, but also complete rich-text, and would let you set different colours for like, things said by a character vs. narration, resulting in an utterly beautiful formatted text.

    Don’t get me wrong, we use Telegram/Discord for that now and having a fully searchable archive of everything that we did and talked about is great and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But the most customization you get is – Setting a profile picture. The most formatting you get is bold/italics.

    Webforums would let you have an avatar, a user title under the avatar (that many forums let you customise!), and a signature. Nowadays with things like Lemmy you have to squint to see a person’s username.

    And like, it’s not like there is something about the modern technologies unto themselves that prevents these bits of customisation: Computers are better at drawing shit on screen than ever, internet connectivity has only gotten faster, and we figured out ‘sending some markup codes to make rich text’ as a thing way back in the 80s. We lost all that simply because the people making the applications don’t want to have it.

    I feel like for every neat thing that new technology provides us, it takes three steps back for entirely human and not at all technological issues. read: capitalism

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      6 months ago

      Heck, my older sister tells me she used to text her friends in class without taking her phone off her pocket. Imagine! IMAGINE typing a text on one of those old phone number pads, just by muscle memory and tact!

      I got a car with a T9 input and I was pleasantly surprised at how good I still was at typing without looking

    • neomachino@lemmy.world
      5·
      6 months ago

      I got my first dishwasher a few years ago and decided to go sort of all in and get a solid mid range one instead of the cheapest option because I was so excited to not have to do dishes.

      The fucking touch buttons are the worst fucking god damn bullshit pieces of shit I’ve ever experienced. From the jump even when they worked ‘properly’ it just felt weird, but a couple years later and half the time the touch doesn’t register. Sometimes there’s the slightest but of crud or water on there and the thing goes crazy and becomes super sensitive all of a sudden, usually I spend 5 minutes loading the dish washer and 10 minutes trying to get it to register which button I pushed.

      I want real physical buttons.

      Also while I’m on the topic I was highly disappointed to learn that you still have to wash food and stuf off of dishes before you put them in. I don’t know why I thought I could throw a plate with crusted lsagana on it the dishwasher but I did. I thought all dishwashers had some sort of garbage disposal thing built into it. They do not.

    • Arfman@aussie.zone
      3·
      5 months ago

      Touchscreen in cars are so bad for safety. Buttons mean you don’t have to take your eyes off the road

    • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
      510·
      6 months ago

      Uhh Linux is a kernel and on its own doesn’t even support graphics much less customising them.

      But if you wanna actually blame someone, we’ll need to know which software youre talking about - could be OPPO’s ColorOS for all we know.

      That being said a big name in the Linux world is KDE, and they have one of the best theming engines Ive ever used. Everything QT follows the theme - so much so I didn’t even realise how ugly some apps look on windows (like prism launcher not matching my file explorer?? Eww)

      That being said I couldn’t agree more with the first part, and in linux specifically I wish we had more ‘basic display driver’ like tools to handle emergency situations.

      • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
        14·
        6 months ago

        Uhh Linux is a kernel and on its own doesn’t even support graphics much less customising them.

        I think we all realise that when someone says “Linux” in casual conversation on the internet, they mean existing well-known distros that include far more than just the naked Kernel, because no one who uses Linux is using just the Kernel, even headless servers aren’t “just the kernel”.

        ANYWAY, I mostly am bitching about Gnome, but other DEs and WMs caught that bug as well to varying degrees. As have a dozen unconnected libre programs. Just for one example try finding a Matrix client that DOESN’T look like a shittier version of Discord (… And doesn’t run on the Terminal)

        There was even a collective of libre application developers that got together specifically to chastise people for using themes and to beg DEs to disable all theming by default because “muh app’s branding and identity!”

        Everything QT follows the theme - so much so I didn’t even realise how ugly some apps look on windows

        Unless you’re using Flatpaks. Then you have to spend an afternoon metaphorically beating your computer with a metaphorical hammer to get the apps (not just qt, gtk too) to look like the rest of the OS.

        and in linux specifically I wish we had more ‘basic display driver’ like tools to handle emergency situations.

        It’s true. It would make the whole thing more resilient.

        • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
          26·
          6 months ago

          Of course, but by just saying Linux you’re bound to be wrong somewhere - I’m just highlighting its so broad its an essentially useless definition (42% of all computers run it by the way). Gnome is pretty shit for customisability, so what’s more customisable than having another option?

          By looking at ‘just Linux’ you couldn’t be more wrong for the core argument.

          It also shifts the blame to many smaller devs like matrix which tbh they’re mostly doing work for free so who’s gonna complain they don’t want to add extra complexity, just get in that source code if you really care. And in the age of such easy frontend engines an experienced could probably whip up their own in a week.

          Also ive never had issues with qt/flatpaks, using prism launcher as an example, its seamlessly followed my color scheme (not saying bugs don’t exist somewhere I’m not seeing, but there certainly is 'just works support to some degree).

          I you’re gonna be mad people don’t like something, yikes open source isn’t for you - git as a whole all but is designed to handle disagreements without breaking its stride.

      • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
        5·
        6 months ago

        “I use Linux as my operating system,” I state proudly to the unkempt, bearded man. He swivels around in his desk chair with a devilish gleam in his eyes, ready to mansplain with extreme precision. “Actually”, he says with a grin, "Linux is just the kernel. You use GNU+Linux!’ I don’t miss a beat and reply with a smirk, “I use Alpine, a distro that doesn’t include the GNU Coreutils, or any other GNU code. It’s Linux, but it’s not GNU+Linux.” The smile quickly drops from the man’s face. His body begins convulsing and he foams at the mouth and drops to the floor with a sickly thud. As he writhes around he screams “I-IT WAS COMPILED WITH GCC! THAT MEANS IT’S STILL GNU!” Coolly, I reply “If windows were compiled with GCC, would that make it GNU?” I interrupt his response with “-and work is being made on the kernel to make it more compiler-agnostic. Even if you were correct, you won’t be for long.” With a sickly wheeze, the last of the man’s life is ejected from his body. He lies on the floor, cold and limp. I’ve womansplained him to death. Here is a quick text about GNU/Linux:

        "I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

        Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

        There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!"

        Understood? No? Here then:

        “I installed Linux and the feeling of freedom and privacy hit me so hard that I immediately began committing crimes, knowing that the FBI could never track me. Piracy, sexual assault, trademark infringement, petty larceny, tax fraud, you name it. I also own several fully automatic firearms even though I live in the state of California, but it doesn’t matter. Ever since I removed Windows 10 from my computer and replaced it with Arch Linux, and began using a PinePhone as my daily driver phone, police can’t even stop me in traffic. Windows may have a lot of video games, but the benefits of Linux should not be understated.”

        • LeFantome@programming.dev
          2·
          5 months ago

          First, I love this.

          To be fair to the original poster though, he did not do the “GNU / Linux” thing. His point seems to be that “Linux” is not enough information to know much about the graphics stack and that seems fair since there is Wayland / Xorg and an array of DE, WM, and toolkit options.

          Have you tried Chimera Linux? It does not even use GCC. It is even less “GNU” than Alpine but no less “Linux” and I do not mean just the kernel.

  • Pulptastic@midwest.socialEnglish
    50·
    6 months ago

    Google keyboard before they went all in on machine learning for spelling and grammar. It was freaky good at correction, then immediately fell off a cliff. It still replaces my son’s name, which I type multiple times a day, with a less common name even when I type it correctly. I’ve removed the wrong name from the dictionary but no dice, still gets it wrong.

    • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
      23·
      6 months ago

      Everything Google has done was better before they inserted machine learning. Google Maps used to give accurate lane-specific directions, then they switched to using approximate traffic data to determine directions, and since most drivers are morons, Maps now tells you to turn right in a straight-only lane and make an illegal left turn in 150ft after crossing 4 lanes.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
        7·
        6 months ago

        Everything Google has done was better before

        There. Google up to 2014 was still mostly decent, with some notable stupid decisions. Anything since feels like shit on top of shit

    • Bongles@lemm.ee
      14·
      6 months ago

      Android “swipe” keyboards in general are almost all terrible right now. We had it, I would get the correct word most of the time and I could do it fast. Now, no matter which one I try using - Google, Samsung, Microsoft, that FOSS one - nearly every sentence i type has some word that it gets wrong.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        9·
        6 months ago

        yep. Swype was like a mind reader. now none of the keyboards seem to have any idea about what I’m writing. random capitalization, suggesting completely obscure words instead of perfectly common ones that makes sense in context, the smallest hitch leading to inserting five completely irrelevant words instead of the one I’m trying to type…

      • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
        3·
        6 months ago

        I’m using heliboard without any trouble. In three languages. It takes a bit of time but if you stick with it the keyboard learns your preferences.

  • eran_morad@lemmy.world
    43·
    6 months ago
    • email. Before Microsoft fucked it up with html and “some asshole would like to recall this email” type bullshit.
    • web search, obviously.
    • any fucking software that you have to rent.
    • so, so much more.
  • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz
    442·
    6 months ago
    • Facebook.
    • OKCupid.
    • Reddit
    • Netflix
    • Amazon Prime Video
    • iTunes
    • Twitter
    • Patreon
    • Everything Adobe
    • Google Voice
    • YouTube
    • Most search engines

    ALSO

    • MySQL
    • Redis

    ALSO

    • Wordpress

    ALSO

    • Vacuum cleaners
    • Refrigerators
    • Every power tool ever
    • Most cars
    • Airplanes (looking at you Boing)

    ALSO

    • Apple products

    ALSO

      • Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.eeEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        Hey now, Pandora still pays 0.133 cents per play to the artists like they always have!

        Surprisingly, it’s more than Deezer pays (0.11 cents).

        So on a good month, 10 to 15 cents of my $5.00 subscription will go to the artists.

        …I think I just talked myself out of paying for this subscription any longer.

        • Turd Ferg@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          6 months ago

          Ive never paid for subscription on pandora. The ad version isnt that bad, but I also dont listen to it for more than an hour at a time. I would say on average I get 5 -15 second ads an hour.

    • ohlaph@lemmy.world
      6·
      6 months ago

      You really summed it up. So much good on that list gone poorly wrong. But hey, they made a few increments for the shareholders.

      • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz
        12·
        6 months ago

        Sure, that was overly broad. But I’ve got a BUNCH of tools in my garage and they’re fine, but my dad’s got a bunch of the same tools in his workshop he had when I was a kid, and they still work just as well now as they did in the 80s (I think his drill press actually used to belong to HIS dad and it’s never failed me). Also, his table saw and band saw rock. I remember using them to cut things for silly projects when I was a kid and I just used the table saw the other day… same saw, great results.

        My take was all centered around “solid” and “built to last”. I don’t have any faith that the tools in my garage will outlast his tools. Don’t see it happening. I think me inheriting his tools is more likely than my tools outlasting them.

        • Domi@lemmy.secnd.me
          4·
          6 months ago

          My dad has an old Makita cordless drill from 1995 which he used for everything from assembling Ikea furniture to drilling holes in cement walls. Complete metal innards, full metal case, battery that’s big and heavy enough to bludgeon somebody to death with.

          Until one day I bought a fancy new Bosch cordless screwdriver with Li-ion battery, brushless motor and 1/4 the size and weight of the Makita.

          At first he laughed at me for buying a toy, then he tried it. He ordered one as well the week after and uses it pretty much exclusively since then.

          Still keeps the Makita box and drill around purely for the retro look but even with fresh batteries the amount of torque they put out is not even in the same league.

          Obviously that is the exception rather than the rule and most technological advances went into making companies more profits instead of building better products, but there are some advancements that made power tools better. Li-ion batteries and brushless motors being two of the big ones.

  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
    402·
    6 months ago

    Car stereos.

    They used to have buttons and tape decks and cd players in em. From the factory.

    I don’t want to do a complex install of some aftermarket thing. I want a car stereo with buttons, knobs, a tape deck, cd player, am/fm and aux input that looks like it belongs in my cars interior and is designed with the same ideas as the rest of the cars controls.

  • Mister Neon@lemmy.world
    381·
    6 months ago

    Swords are kind of crap now compared to the Renaissance. These days they come out of malls to be put on walls.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
    31·
    6 months ago

    Roomba. It got better in ways that made it worse. Really just want to put it in a room and let it wander around and vacuum. It doesn’t need to map the house and then get confused if a door is closed. It doesn’t need to tell me the filter is old. The old ones you could just put them wherever and close a door or put a box in the way to keep it corralled where you want it.

    Better and smarter are two different things. Sometimes they intersect, other times they don’t.