Things that are better today

[Ass to Ass]

Firearms, especially handguns. They've gotten lighter, less expensive, more customizable and modular. There was a time when the latest, greatest thing was the Beretta 92 and you were stuck with irons. No red dots, no weapon-mounted lights. Now you can buy a variety of firearms to fit the bill, ranging from little pocket pistols like the Ruger Max in .380 ACP to the Sig P365 in 9×19mm. A lot of options can take lights, red dots, lasers, threaded barrels, etc.

On a similar note, concealed carry laws are so much better in recent years. About 20 years ago, concealed carry was completely illegal in my state. Now, you don't even need a permit to do it. 29 states have permitless concealed carry.

Third example is flashlights, which ties into the weapon-mounted lights I mentioned earlier. There was a time when the latest, greatest thing was a bulky Maglite that wouldn't fit in your pocket, made a beam maybe four inches wide, was barely enough to see and got real hot, real fast. Now, we have little tiny pocket-clip flashlights that can put out bright light at great distances while remaining almost completely cool. There are portable LED options that put out more light than gas-powered military searchlights of yesteryear.

Internet speeds

There was a time a few months back where my cable internet got shut off. I was stuck on a mobile hotspot for my PC and that ran out within two days. 600 kbit speed throttle on that hotspot. Ended up having to piggyback off a neighbor's WiFi.

We take high-speed internet for granted, it's a really big deal if you think about it.

 

[Pedophobe]

Anti-zionism is totally hot right now.

 

[Calandrino]

There's a lot more past than there used to be

 

[TapewormSalesman]

The fact that now you can ping a number as a scammer/marketing, or an organization through google. No longer do I need to pick up on random scammers just because I'm paranoid of the local IRS-equivalent calling.
Also ever since covid delivery from online stores has gotten super fast and there's more parcel machines everywhere even in small towns.

 

[Brenda Holiday]

Third example is flashlights

I just figured this out recently. No more giant heavy flashlight that takes multiple D batteries for insufficient amber light.

 

[N Space]

Chips have gotten orders of magnitude faster and more power efficient over the decades, ditto for memory. You can buy off the shelve GPUs like the 4090 with as much computing power as supercomputers from the 2000's.

 

[Irregardless]

I came up with a few examples I think.

- Fitness
While a lot of the world might be obsessed with having no standards for health or not being a fat piece of shit, it's never been easier to not only get in better shape, but to get jacked. There are endless popular, easily understandable videos that can walk you step by step on how to build a healthy and good-tasting diet as well as any kind or level of workout plan you want. Gym memberships are also pretty cheap being as long as $10-20/month, and if you need more assistance the saturation of fitness coaches and clubs has made it so you can have someone literally handle everything other than buying an cooking the food all for just a few hundred bucks a month.

- Hobbies
This one is a bit of a double-edged sword since while the barrier has never been lower to get into a random hobby, it's also never been easier for commies and degenerates to come in and destroy them. That being said, there are plenty of hobbies that don't involve having to be part of a community to enjoy. It's never been easier to learn how to play an instrument, learn to draw, get into messing with vehicles, wood working, gardening, etc. Back in the day if you wanted to learn something you had to, A. Know somebody who already did it. B. Pay somebody to teach you how to do it. or C. Try and figure it out on your own, hopefully with the help of some kind of book. Today though, if you want to get into aquariums, you don't have to go spend hours talking to weirdos in a fish store, as you can just look up how to make and sustain the exact kind you want, and any issues you run into are likely documented and easy to find.

 

[Coolio55]

Game emulation and preservation.
Internet speeds and consumer storage capacity.

 

[Kalamazoo 2 Timbuktu]

Less babies die in childbirth. Less Children die of illnesses and diseases that are easily treatable with antibiotics or other modern medicine.

There’s a pill to fix Men’s limp noodles. (Although I heard something last night that claimed many having issues could be from enlarged prostate. So check that first men)

 

[The Last Stand]

My 40 year old grandma looked older in the 80s than she did at 70 years old in the 2010s.

Interesting.

Thread tax: it's infinitely easier to communicate with people thanks to smartphones. Also, everybody has a GPS so you won't get as lost.

 

[Picklechu]

Seconding digital storage. I recently came across the flash drive that I saved all of my papers to during my freshman year of college (2009-2010). It was a whopping 1GB, and I want to say that it cost around $30. Just this week, I bought a 128GB drive for like $14.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

That being said, there are plenty of hobbies that don't involve having to be part of a community to enjoy. It's never been easier to learn how to play an instrument, learn to draw, get into messing with vehicles, wood working, gardening, etc.

I’m into making models and things have never been better. Any tool, material or accessory I need is available online, and technologies like 3D printing and laser cutting mean that it’s easier than ever before to make something to be proud of. And there are online tutorials for all levels of skill, photos and descriptions for research and lots of forums where people can ask for advice.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

TVs.
I like having all the smart fixtures on our TV, being able to watch nearly anything I want is wonderful.

And I second the skin care and makeup, people today are taking better care of their skin and the rest of their bodies.

Phone service is much better and cheaper. I remember long-distance calls were expensive, now with many phone plans it's nothing at all.

 

[Turkey Beef]

Access to information and technology. The rise of the internet and smartphones has made knowledge more accessible than ever, allowing people to learn, connect, and communicate.

For that matter, the sheer availability of media content thanks to the internet - for instance, we could only binge a show in the early 2000s if we had the dvd sets of a tv series or if there was a marathon of a tv show going on but it wasn’t new episodes, it was rerun episodes, now we can watch an entire season or series of a show in one sitting, whether its from streaming or widely accessible piracy, or places like archive dot org.

Medical advancement, there's a cure or at least decent treatment for many conditions that were terminal just two decades years ago.

We can connect with our loved ones through video calls from anywhere in the world, as opposed to expensive international phone calls that could only be made under certain time frames.