Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[Never Scored]

- Not having a physical manual come with a physical copy of a game. Opening a case and seeing a slip of paper with a QR code or a URL where a booklet used to be fucks me up in a strange way. I still have my manual for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It's 183 pages of game information, world lore, information about the races, and all sorts of shit. The thing is a fucking tome. I remember Morrowind having a pretty thick manual as well.

Man, I legit spent so much time reading the tomes that came with Starcraft and Warcraft II in my early teens. Makes me extremely nostalgic as well.

 

[Mister Uno]

The internet has essentially been condensed to a network of apps as far as mass usage goes. Smaller niche forums and websites have all been merged into a Reddit blob.

I am so FUCKING tired of seeing everything I use look like it was made for mobile on the damn desktop. What the fuck is the point of this? Especially when the site is still just as bloated if not more so, now featuring more bugs and unusual design choices. I absolutely despise the average modern web designer, and a good chunk of them are shitskins. Even the ones who aren't are incredibly ignorant of computers and networking.

The focus on optimization being lost as time progresses. Since storage is now relatively cheap, file sizes keep getting larger and larger. The advent of PC gaming came about from 1st and 2nd generation coders trying to balance what they could achieve in terms of presentation with the hardware that was available at the time.

Just like above where bloat is a fairly big issue in programs as well and is only going to get worse. Especially with things like electron becoming ever more popular cause its supposedly easy to work with. Almost all programs I see anymore are either Python or Java, the latter of which is incredibly bloated as far as I know. I'm mad that multi-threading for games is still NEVER utilized despite multi-core processors being common for years now.
Hell, old games did a lot of things that are still incredibly impressive to this day.
When I was kid, I thought games where going to be super advanced when it comes to physics, AI, and cool little details. The only thing that has advanced really is graphics, while everything else has become worse in general. Kid me would be disappointed.

 

[seri0us]

-The focus on optimization being lost as time progresses. Since storage is now relatively cheap, file sizes keep getting larger and larger. The advent of PC gaming came about from 1st and 2nd generation coders trying to balance what they could achieve in terms of presentation with the hardware that was available at the time.

"Optimise for storage?? but there's so much!" This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Some car makers have decided to combine both the dash and the infotainment screen, into one large gigantic one. The newly revealed 2025 Buick Electra E5 EV is one example of such screen madness:



And I don't want to imagine the cost of replacing this screen, as if current car repair costs can be bad at times...

The 2021 Cadillac Escalade has three sets of screens, which total 38 inches, and is the definition of overindulgence:

 

[AnOminous]

Some car makers have decided to combine both the dash and the infotainment screen, into one large gigantic one. The newly revealed 2025 Buick Electra E5 EV is one example of such screen madness:

As if this piece of shit won't break with the slightest accident.

 

[anustart76]

- Not having a physical manual come with a physical copy of a game. Opening a case and seeing a slip of paper with a QR code or a URL where a booklet used to be fucks me up in a strange way. I still have my manual for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It's 183 pages of game information, world lore, information about the races, and all sorts of shit. The thing is a fucking tome. I remember Morrowind having a pretty thick manual as well.

I remember when I was a kid, I was so excited to play my new game that I'd open up the box and read the manual on the way home in anticipation of firing up the new game. I only play on PC now, which is all digital, but I do miss the experience of leafing through a manual. Some of those manuals had some incredible effort and love put into them.

 

[Brabbit Narp]

I am so FUCKING tired of seeing everything I use look like it was made for mobile on the damn desktop. What the fuck is the point of this? Especially when the site is still just as bloated if not more so, now featuring more bugs and unusual design choices. I absolutely despise the average modern web designer, and a good chunk of them are shitskins. Even the ones who aren't are incredibly ignorant of computers and networking.

Just like above where bloat is a fairly big issue in programs as well and is only going to get worse. Especially with things like electron becoming ever more popular cause its supposedly easy to work with. Almost all programs I see anymore are either Python or Java, the latter of which is incredibly bloated as far as I know. I'm mad that multi-threading for games is still NEVER utilized despite multi-core processors being common for years now.
Hell, old games did a lot of things that are still incredibly impressive to this day.
When I was kid, I thought games where going to be super advanced when it comes to physics, AI, and cool little details. The only thing that has advanced really is graphics, while everything else has become worse in general. Kid me would be disappointed.

Based on the limited research I have done over the years asking the same question regarding the frankly abominable state of mobile UI, it can mostly be boiled down to inconvenience by design and just not giving a shit for the end user experience. As far as the backers of these websites such as Reddit, YouTube, and so on are concerned, their sole focus is to get as many eyeballs as possible to stay on their website as possible for the maximum period of time. YouTube for instance already has optimized its interface to keep you watching, watching, and watching without ever finding the damn thing you were actually looking for, while pruning many a useful feature on a whim to either maximize engagement and to reduce any form of controversy, such as with the removal of video replies and the like. With these websites, they are so big that they can do almost anything to it and not suffer much in the long term. At worst, if they were to remove a feature like playlists on a whim or start charging an annual fee to have the privilege of uploading videos to their website, people will bitch, but they'll still remain because they remain the best viable game in town.

When you are so big that you cannot fail, why bother trying to improve when people will still come to your website? Why bother trying to implement and maintain additional feature sets for the end user that isn't their target audience at all? In those cases, your actual customers are the advertisers and other such entities that you sell the information of any number of people coming to the website for. And seeing how mobile has more or less lobotomized much of the percentage of people who use the internet being locked into thinking how an app wants them to think and act, why bother trying to improve for either the desktop or mobile experience? They don't know any better, and even if they did, it isn't like they would actually give a damn to change their habits.

One thing that royally pisses me off is websites badgering you to login to their website to continue using it, or download their app that gathers all sorts of telemetry when installed. Reddit and Pinterest come to mind, with the latter especially irritaitng seeing how effectively they have dominated the search results with their SEO, with anything else buried dead in the dirt. Even if you are on desktop, the former still applies to some websites that may actively deprecated their features and lock them behind a login wall. DeviantART is a site that comes to mind that with their Eclipse update, effectively killed whatever incentive I had to continue using it. DeviantART isn't exactly the bastion of content in the first place, with a well earned reputation for degeneracy gained over the years due to lackluster filters and the like. However, as one of the earlier art websites that popped up back in the 2000s, it was still the best place to look for a great repository of art of all sorts, at least up until the Eclipse update kneecaped the site for any user that wasn't logged in or registered.

During my limited free time at work without the means to get a place to use my laptop, I used to browse that website for references, tutorials, and just nice art for maps, franchises, and other stuff that I like to peruse as visual reference for my fiction projects for later on. It was cumbersome, downloading art one piece at a time, but it was nice enough for my needs in the limited time I had to look for stuff that was suited to my needs.

And then, Eclipse came on to the scene. Outside of Youtube, I have never seen a more horrible update that did everything it could to kill my enjoyment for browsing that website. Basic features like downloading the full image that were previously available to unregistered users were now locked behind a fucking login wall. The nice set of categories you used to filter content had been purged, replaced by nothing but an endless scrolling a disorganized mess of content that was barely sorted into journals-

Holy shit, they actually made it worse. Somehow, they managed to improve on the horribleness of the website and now removed the ability to scroll endlessly. They returned paged views, but... Jesus Christ, only twenty four images at a time now.

It was like that before the update, but at least they gave you the option to browse via pages on desktop. But now they don't even give you that feature. Categories still technically exist, but you have to type them out every search query.

And believe it or not, it's even worse on mobile. The website constantly badgers you to login repeatedly, and this excuse for a "dark" mode is a goddamn eyesore.

Infinite scrolling still exist, but that is also locked behind a login wall. The one place where I wouldn't mind it, and they remove even that.

And the latest shit cherry on top is the forced incorporation of any and all art into this company's proprietary deep learning algorithm for their Art AI. All images uploaded to this website now default to being accepted into an agreement that the company behind this can use your image without any ability for the artist to opt out regardless...

Well, that isn't entirely true. You *can* opt out of the program if you wish. Provided of course you wish to opt out each image individually.

As a man that is firmly in the pro side of AI art, this is still a shit move to play. If you are going to make opting out so damned inconvenient and labor intensive, then why bother giving out the option in the first place? Your website is already in the toilet as far as user metrics are concerned, and playing this move will only further alienate what artists and users are left for the platform.

Honestly, I have no idea of what brainlet okay'ed any of this going forward. Between trying to make their own hideous clone of ArtStation and their latest antics, one would think they are *trying* to torpedo this website. Unlike YouTube, deviantART isn't big enough to keep their users on the platform when viable competition to them actually exists. Hell, even Twitter is a better alternative for artists based on the profiles I have read of the users who have purged their galleries in response to all of this. You have to be some special sort of fuckup if you managed to make that hellhole of a website appealing as far as art posting goes.

It's just one website, but it's just one of many that perfectly exemplify where the web is going as far as the end user experience is concerned.

Inconvenient. Troublesome. And doing everything it can to make the end user experience as miserable as possible without giving back anything in return.

I'll admit, I only managed to experience the tail end of the golden age as far as web experiences are concerned. But it's hard to believe that it has all managed to get so bad in such a short span of time. With so few competitors around, you don't need to worry about anything like net neutrality. It's already all been consolidated down to a few bloated, cumbersome websites that do everything in their power to drain you of everything that you are worth while providing dubious perks designed to keep you on there for as long as possible. With the state of things as they are now, I can't see things improving outside of a few obscure circles. The web is so destitute of anything interesting nowadays thanks to algorithms funneling everyone into select pieces of content that are for the most part bland and sterile, with anything outside of that circle getting pruned into smaller pieces all the time.

You can try to fight it, but that will only result in you getting crushed and buried by the powers that be, as we are well aware thanks to the many efforts to bring this website down and many others. Maybe there is a way out of this mess into some small pasture of Eden, but I am not going to hold my breath on it improving in the next five to ten years.

I could rant more, about how all of this is symptomatic of a much greater series of issues, but I'd be preaching to the choir. I just miss the web how it was even going back to eight years ago. It wasn't great, but at least you had plenty of diversity in terms of stuff you could look at, things to learn, places to be, even if it was not as great as the period of the 2000s. All without worry about this inconvenience by design bullshit that readily permeates every place imaginable.

 

[byuu]

Some car makers have decided to combine both the dash and the infotainment screen, into one large gigantic one. The newly revealed 2025 Buick Electra E5 EV is one example of such screen madness:

View attachment 4664337

And I don't want to imagine the cost of replacing this screen, as if current car repair costs can be bad at times...

The 2021 Cadillac Escalade has three sets of screens, which total 38 inches, and is the definition of overindulgence:

View attachment 4664357

What ever happened to those HUDs projected onto the windshields?
Those were neat.

 

[Thiletonomics]

What ever happened to those HUDs projected onto the windshields?
Those were neat.

Those are still a thing with cars, although it's not as widespread as the screen obsessions.

Ford has recently patented a self-repossession system, to aid in repossessing cars. Those include either locking out functionality, (which is already a thing with "Buy Here Pay Here" cars, in that they include a GPS system to prevent a car from starting, if an owner misses a payment, and to track down the car to repossess it) moving the car a bit forward to position it for it to be towed away, or even driving itself to a repo lot or junkyard outright.

And surely this system won't be abused in any way. Surely.

 

[thog]

I hate Discord and how Normies flock to the absolute worst platforms for privacy and security. I can't get any of my friends off Discord because there's this one faggot turbozoomer acquaintance of mine who has had Discord Nitro for years, and hangs out in these anime servers, and because of him, nobody else will follow me to my self-hosted encrypted and unmoderated Matrix server, even though nobody except him is in any other Discord servers.

 

[Day Drinking]

After helping with an arcade, I'm upset by analog joysticks getting replaced with digital ones. Even the claw machines, which act like cumbersome jerky things without the smooth acceleration.

Also the amount of games with touchscreens. Arcades weren't the most sanitary before, but the static of those screens really hold onto and attracts everything.

And everywhere moving away from quarters or tokens to the god damn swipers which are made by some fuck all company that dominates the market with their shit product. There's something wrong when a quarter of the games don't work because the readers aren't registered with the server. Or it costs 200 to "upgrade" the wireless card and all they send you is a USB attachment with a fucking dongle, and the readers still can't connect at 5g.

 

[anustart76]

I hate Discord and how Normies flock to the absolute worst platforms for privacy and security. I can't get any of my friends off Discord because there's this one faggot turbozoomer acquaintance of mine who has had Discord Nitro for years, and hangs out in these anime servers, and because of him, nobody else will follow me to my self-hosted encrypted and unmoderated Matrix server, even though nobody except him is in any other Discord servers.

I hate that everything has moved to Discord, finding modding communities is especially hard because Discord servers are a nightmare to find.

 

[stupidpieceofshit]

And everywhere moving away from quarters or tokens to the god damn swipers which are made by some fuck all company that dominates the market with their shit product. There's something wrong when a quarter of the games don't work because the readers aren't registered with the server. Or it costs 200 to "upgrade" the wireless card and all they send you is a USB attachment with a fucking dongle, and the readers still can't connect at 5g.

And with the swipers in lue of tokens or quarters have moved to Microtransaction currency levels of greed/stupidity/abuse.
Using partial credits not .25 or .33 but like .7 or .4 so you can never zero out your credits.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

I miss when the internet wasn't filled degenerates in every fucking corner of it; when the internet used to be rather innocent in nature and people were just having fun. I hate it so much.

They're everywhere, THEY'RE EVEN IN THE WALLS!

 

[indomitable snowman]

I don't know if there is a better place to put this, but fucking signal app removing SMS.
It is a seriously retarded decision to make - https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/. They have time to put in "stories" (while complaining about UX challenges with SMS) but not keep a key functionality of the application itself. It was great to have SMS and secure messages in one place and it made it easy to convert someone. Likewise this sentiment is quite common amongst the users so they're making braindead choices without actually consulting the people who use the app.


Now, I doubt I could get anyone to use it and I have to go back to google messenger or whatever new messaging application they made in the time I wrote this.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

I don't know if there is a better place to put this, but fucking signal app removing SMS.
It is a seriously retarded decision to make - https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/. They have time to put in "stories" (while complaining about UX challenges with SMS) but not keep a key functionality of the application itself. It was great to have SMS and secure messages in one place and it made it easy to convert someone. Likewise this sentiment is quite common amongst the users so they're making braindead choices without actually consulting the people who use the app.


Now, I doubt I could get anyone to use it and I have to go back to google messenger or whatever new messaging application they made in the time I wrote this.

Signal is just becoming a glorified Whatsapp now. I remember when it was first released and it was the supposed gold standard for encrypted end to end messaging. I don't think it can be held to the same high regard these days.

 

[Matt Damon]

I miss when the internet wasn't filled degenerates in every fucking corner of it; when the internet used to be rather innocent in nature and people were just having fun. I hate it so much.

It definitely used to be more innocent in the sense there's so much more money and corporate control now, but it's always been filled with filthy degenerates.

 

[Patrick Bait-man]

It definitely used to be more innocent in the sense there's so much more money and corporate control now, but it's always been filled with filthy degenerates.

It has, but it feels like everyone is a degenerate waiting to be revealed. Everyday there's some dipshit being exposed to be a pedophile, groomer, etc usually via Discord. I can't trust anyone anymore.

 

[byuu]

I miss when the internet wasn't filled degenerates in every fucking corner of it; when the internet used to be rather innocent in nature and people were just having fun. I hate it so much.

It was full of degenerates before the internet was even a thing.
It doesn't take long browsing an uncensored BBS archive to find something extremely haram:

http://textfiles.com/sex/EROTICA/A/alf.txt

 

[White Devil]

As if this piece of shit won't break with the slightest accident.

That's probably part of the rationale behind it. Easier to total forcing you into another car, or a sky high repair bill.