Technology That Will Vanish in The Next Five Years - Except for the things on this list that still have a use

[Trimmed Archer]

Whatever happened to anticipated mass production of dry toilets?

 

[teriyakiburns]

Whatever happened to anticipated mass production of dry toilets?

Oh they were quite a success with that. They just had to travel 450 years into the past.

 

[Trimmed Archer]

Oh they were quite a success with that. They just had to travel 450 years into the past.

It's like the toilet-sitting posture: Backwards goes forwards!

 

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Here's an old one that's pretty much polar opposite of the OP:

Everything New Sucks

Oh boy. I bet that guy is really pleased about copper phase-outs. At least the cancer bulbs are on the way out.

While LCD screens have improved a lot, I still kind of agree with him about LCD vs a good big Trinitron CRT.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I bet that guy is really pleased about copper phase-outs.

That's the first time I heard about that. What's going on there?

 

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That's the first time I heard about that. What's going on there?

He mentions the greater quality of voice transmission over copper phone lines vs. most VOIP-based home-phone solutions, at least those provided by the networks and the garbage-tier router hardware of most companies which are trying to replace copper lines with fibre.

I am aware of this occurring in many Western nations, including the United States (also in several Oriental countries but they don't complain). I believe Verizon is the main culprit in the US, totally neglecting copper lines in an attempt to force elderly people with perfectly good working phones and faxes and home alarms and health alert devices to move to all new electronic garbage. Frankly, despicable.

 

[Dom Cruise]

DVDs will never die because there's bound to be media that will never be on anything past DVD and even if it's not the best quality, it's still far better and more accessible than VHS.

It's possible everything that's been remastered into HD already will wind up on a streaming service, but there's bound to be loads of old TV shows and obscure movies stuck on DVD.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

all new electronic garbage

So landline may stick around, but the means of transmission will cease to be copper wires? Or will companies only provide VOIP in place of landline (COX in the USA already does this)?

Also I hate it when webpages are just blank white screens unless you have javascript on. That webpage you linked is an example.

 

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So landline may stick around, but the means of transmission will cease to be copper wires? Or will companies only provide VOIP in place of landline (COX in the USA already does this)?

Basically where this has happened, your only option is VoIP running over fibre (with the worst possible voice compression codecs because that's ever so marginally cheaper). When that's done, really the only advantage of having a 'landline' as such (the potential for voice quality) has disappeared.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

where this has happened, your only option is VoIP running over fibre

Damn that sucks. I used VOIP once. In order for my fossil phone* to even work with it, the modem had to be plugged in, or a battery you couldn't remove providing backup power. Eventually the stupid thing malfunctioned and I couldn't make any calls. I hate this hipster technophile "hurr durr let's replace everything that works with digital because it's current year" mentality.

*(a push button phone - the most advanced feature is speed dial)

 

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Damn that sucks. I used VOIP once. In order for my fossil phone* to even work with it, the modem had to be plugged in, or a battery you couldn't remove providing backup power. Eventually the stupid thing malfunctioned and I couldn't make any calls. I hate this hipster technophile "hurr durr let's replace everything that works with digital because it's current year" mentality.

*(a push button phone - the most advanced feature is speed dial)

Yes, basically at this point where this has been adopted you have to have a mobile phone, and a means to charge it, for an emergency phone. Not ideal.

I was an early adopter before any ISPs anywhere got on this. VoIP has some great advantages in theory. If you run a business with operations in multiple countries and you use an independent provider it can be great. Like all the advantages of having your own PBX at a fraction of the cost.

You can use a decent voice codec that at least comes close to analogue quality. You can use a codec on 'fax' lines that allows you to receive faxes if your customers are crazy enough to do so. You can answer calls to a number from your home phone- or your desk at work- or your mobile on the go in your primary country or overseas. You can easily set up calls bouncing around to other numbers when they aren't answered within a certain amount of rings. You can get voicemails to your email...

Naturally, VoIP services bundled by ISPs offer none of these advantages.

 

[Hal]

Um unless the ps5 or xbox one are massive failures they will be around longer than 5 years. And the switch is still running strong and nintendo will prob update the hardware somewhere down the line and the units will sell. I don't see them dying that soon.

 

[byuu]

Here's an old one that's pretty much polar opposite of the OP:

Everything New Sucks

I love rants against modern consumer tech but he just comes across as a tech-illiterate boomer.

Energy-Saving Lights Suck
...
Energy saving lights destroy our environment. They are loaded with lead in their connectors and circuit boards,

Is he talking about the leaded solder used in the driver board? That's not even used anymore and the environmental impact is extremely overblown.

The long life ratings on the box are for leaving the light on continuously. The catch is that unlike real light bulbs, CFLs are deeply stressed when turned on, so in actual use where they're turned on and off all the time, they die young.

Incandescent bulbs actually have the same problem. The filament gets much more stressed when you turn it on (since the resistance of the filament is lower when it's still cold).

Plus all the Apple cock sucking. When Apple removes buttons it's brilliant but when others do it it's bad.

 

[Pissmaster]

I think it's the lightswitches one that makes me laugh the hardest. Holy shit, it's like that scene from Wall-E with all the ultra-obese humans flying around. You're not gonna go far in life if you need a networked, always-listening big-tech backed device to deal with shutting your lights on and off. Holy shit. I wanna see this faggot try to sign a check and end up with debilitating hand cramps for three straight days from having to hold a pen for a moment.

I'll never understand why people leaped wholesale to give up their consumer rights by abandoning physical media. Was the 2 minutes it took to get up and put the disc in that inconvenient?

I hope it doesn't go away but DVD/Blu Ray are pretty much in the same spot VHS was before it got retired now.

I think streaming services flourish largely due to how most movies will just be watched once, so a $15 all-you-can-watch library is tempting for most. Then again, DVD & BD collecting is still very popular and still sell well second-hand, since people don't tend to like it when the thing they're enjoying just vanishes from their streaming service. Hell, music never stopped being released on CDs, and new albums are now commonly being released on cassette and vinyl because, turns out, people actually like to own hard copies of the media they love. This applies to pretty much everyone who's not a soulless dullard who just drinks in whatever's popular online from day to day.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

new albums are now commonly being released on cassette and vinyl

I knew records were coming back, but how big are tapes again?

(Microcomputer enthusiasts using old computers that use tapes for storage may like the fact that cassette tapes are coming back.)

 

[Pissmaster]

I knew records were coming back, but how big are tapes again?

(Microcomputer enthusiasts using computers that use tapes may like that cassette tapes are coming back.)

It's more or less a novelty right now, but it's happening. The last couple of Blink-182 albums have been available on cassette tape, as well as a lot of smaller indie releases as a way to get their names out there. Techmoan did a nice video about it:

Basic ferro cassette tapes are still being produced, as are very basic players. No metal or Dolby or anything anymore, but if you want to sell your music on a tape, new supply's still actually available.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

if you want to sell your music on a tape, new supply's still actually available

The local store around here sells records, but still not tapes or players (at least not cheap standalone ones).

Do you think VHS (or Beta lol) could ever make a comeback too?

 

[sasazuka]

Damn that sucks. I used VOIP once. In order for my fossil phone* to even work with it, the modem had to be plugged in, or a battery you couldn't remove providing backup power. Eventually the stupid thing malfunctioned and I couldn't make any calls. I hate this hipster technophile "hurr durr let's replace everything that works with digital because it's current year" mentality.

*(a push button phone - the most advanced feature is speed dial)

A hidden advantage of having a landline in this day and age is that they don't wake you up in the middle of the night for Amber Alerts from cities hundreds of miles away the way smartphones do for those of us in provinces or states where Amber Alerts are "Presidential level" messages you can't opt out of (unless you keep your smartphone turned off when you're not using it like I do).

 

[Pissmaster]

The local store around here sells records, but still not tapes or players (at least not cheap standalone ones).

Do you think VHS (or Beta lol) could ever make a comeback too?

Oh, I mean like, you can still order new cassette tapes in bulk and record your album onto them for sale. You can even get new Minidiscs, albeit you have to order them from Japan.

As for VHS, I think that's much less likely. With music, tapes still sound fine to anyone who isn't an audiophile as long as you have a decent player, and you can still use just about any headphones, since everything's been using the 3.5mm jack for decades. Even a lot of Bluetooth cans have a port for an aux cable. VHS tapes, on the other hand, look like ass on any HDTV, so you need a CRT for the right experience. CRTs are so heavy and take up so much room that you sort of need to set aside a special space in your home for one, and that's not gonna fly with anyone outside of the serious enthusiasts. Not to mention, the 16:9 switchover and the public's tolerance for pan 'n' scan eroding hasn't helped matters, so I sincerely doubt we'll see much in the way of a VHS revival. Maybe we'll see special editions of classic horror movies in a Blu-Ray & VHS box set, so you can watch some classic Rob Zombie flicks on your CRT at night for the full effect. But that's about all I could really envision with a VHS revival.

edit: As for like, Beta and Laserdisc, there just aren't enough players out there even for late-coming enthusiasts. Like me. I still don't have a Beta or a Laserdisc player, and they're a little pricey second-hand when I've just been hoping to stumble into one at a garage sale. Hell, at this point, I think UMDs are more accessible than Beta or Laserdisc, simply because it's easier to find a PSP.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

I believe Verizon is the main culprit in the US, totally neglecting copper lines in an attempt to force elderly people with perfectly good working phones and faxes and home alarms and health alert devices to move to all new electronic garbage. Frankly, despicable.

I think every US copper carrier is doing as little as possible with their phone lines (and often string new lines rather begrudgingly even when needed) in their effort to "persuade" consumers to switch from copper to their fiber/VOIP service that simply isn't as reliable and tends to cost more once the inital bargain rate expires after x number of months.

Also, I'd willing to bet every TelCo in the US that still has POTS service tries to upsell fiber service and internet access any time a customer calls for service, billing inquiries, etc. They seem aghast that people turn those offers down in favor of keeping their POTS not just for familiarity but for the reliability and reasons @3119967d0c touched on.

Futther, the effort to push people to switch away from POTS has opened a floodgate of shady telemarketing calls where the caller claims to be from your phone company and uses various ploys ("We want to speak to the person in charge of your phone bill about better rates" or "We have repair techs in your area to upgrade your service to fiber" being two of the most popular) to get people to switch to Fiber or VOIP service from what turns out to be a third party reseller who sells the service at a hefty markup as compared to what one might pay for service direct from the TelCo.

A hidden advantage of having a landline in this day and age is that they don't wake you up in the middle of the night for Amber Alerts from cities hundreds of miles away the way smartphones do for those of us in provinces or states where Amber Alerts are "Presidential level" messages you can't opt out of (unless you keep your smartphone turned off when you're not using it like I do).

I'm thankful general Amber Alerts can be disabled because the ones I tended to receive before I disabled them fell into two categories:

• Missing people who were last seen too far away to be relevant to my area, and
• Weather alerts simply stating the obvious and offering nothing that can't already be learned from listening to the weather forecast on TV, radio, or the dedicated weather band.

If Presidential Alerts start to become more prevalent, people may actually have to start turning off their phones when they can't take calls as opposed to using vibrate/silent mode since these alerts still seem to send their piercing tone even in those modes.