In the 1980s, you could fly from London to New York in under three hours. This was achieved through the innovative and truly groundbreaking Concorde, a supersonic passenger plane that was discontinued in 2003. It seems so bizarre to many of us that technology can seemingly step backwards, but the truth is the world is literate with similar examples.
Someone asked “What inventions are worse than 30 years ago?” and netizens shared their examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to give your own examples in the comments section below.

#1

Websites. Early websites were clean, loaded quickly, didn’t have tracking cookies or cookie pop-ups and focused on telling you what you wanted to know without a ton of extraneous low-value images.

Image credits: Legal_Broccoli200

#2

We had knobs and buttons on car radios and car ventilation controls. A driver could make adjustments just by touch and not take their eyes of the road. Nowadays, all buttons feel the same or we have touch screens and a driver has to look at them.

Image credits: Coenberht

#3

Keyless ignition serves no useful purpose and is much less secure than a physical car key. You can’t clone a key through a brick wall.

One of those Jurassic Park moments of people trying to show what they could do without thinking whether they should.

Image credits: Friend_Klutzy

#4

Mobile phones. The worst thing to ever happen as a supposed ‘technological advance’ was removing the earphone socket in mobile phones. Now, I have to rely on wireless earphones that always fall out, and the possibility that my phone might lose connection and start blasting music out loud.

Image credits: VeronicaMarsIsGreat

#5

Handwriting .. Many people having handwriting that were almost like art back then (especially the elders). On the occasions one see handwriting nowadays.. it’s just like wtf is written here. Nice/Perfect handwriting still impresses me no matter how “ancient” many think handwriting is nowadays. A kind of “everyday art”. Can still look at some letters sent by grandparents and think of both the skills and time they used to make it. Using their minds and souls before the words were put on the paper. Words are so cheap and simple in the era of the keyboard and computers.

Image credits: InThePast8080

#6

Cars. Too wide, too bulky, headlights too bright, too locked in with ridiculous diagnostics and sensors and god knows what else…and they all look the f*****g same!

I bought an ’09 Vauxhall last year, hoping I can keep it running as long as possible, but I’m really dreading having to choose something else in a few years’ time.

Image credits: geekroick

#7

TV streaming services. Beforehand if you enjoyed a program you could buy the DVD or download from the likes of iTunes or other services, and rewatch whenever you wanted to and you owned it

Now it’s either a gamble of “is it on Netflix? Disney? Prime Video?” Or even a case of it’s not on any whatsoever and you can’t watch it.

And more you might subscribe to the likes of Netflix for a specific film or program you like. But then they can take it off whenever they desire.

For example I’ve been wanting a rewatch of Peter Kay’s old comedy programs like Phoenix Nights and Max & Paddy’s Road to Nowhere. They’re not on anything but I’m so glad I’ve got the DVDs still.

Then at least with the likes of Sky+ you could record a film if it was on the TV and then watch it whenever you liked. Now with the likes of their new “Sky Stream,” you pay monthly to essentially watch On Demand like you do with the rest of things, available for free on most smart TVs.

Image credits: Jlaw118

#8

Banks and branches with managers you could talk to and ask for things, e.g. overdraft extensions. Nowadays you have to be on hold for an hour to speak to someone in the Philippines who doesn’t know what an ISA is.

Image credits: 28374woolijay

#9

I think social media was an invention that made the world an inferior place.

Image credits: mannomanniwish

#10

Clothing.

Everything available now is absolutely sh*te and doesn't survive long at all. 3 pairs of identical levis jeans I have all came out of the same wash different sizes. Tshirts go out of shape in weeks. Everything is plastic or contains it. Bog standard suits from M&s are absolutely garbage (and *stretchy*! Who wants stretch fabric suits?)

This wasn't the case 20 years ago. Jeans were cheap, cut better, and lasted. Trainers lasted a year and not the 4 months I now get out of them. You could get nice wool jumpers that wouldn't shrink miles in a gentle wash. Generally things were worth repairing. The good old days!

Edit: should say "everything available *on the high street* is absolutely s***e." There are new UK-based companies making good clothes, but they tend to be online only and a lot more pricey (which I suppose you'd expect).

Image credits: anon

#11

Kitchen white goods such as washing machines etc. My mum’s washing machine she bought in 1980 lasted her nearly 20 years. Modern ones don’t seem to last more than 5-6 years.

Image credits: Agreeable_Guard_7229

#12

Modern cake mixers. I have a mixer from the 1960s that is still going strong today. I have tried modern mixers, but not only do they not work as well, they don’t last very long either.

It’s more than 60 years old, used to belong to my grandmother, has all its original parts and is still making cakes to this day. It’s outlasted every single modern mixer I’ve tried.

Image credits: ghostoftommyknocker

#13

Streetlamps used to give a nice warm glow before we replaced them with those ghastly white lights.

Image credits: xar-brin-0709

#14

McDonalds had straws with which you could drink their milkshakes. .

Image credits: Perfect_Confection25

#15

Vacuum cleaners. They have lower levels of suction compared to rhe 90s and are massively over engineered.

I got to use an old early 2000s vacuum while cleaning a church hall the other day and it’s pick up was fantastic compared to my modern Shark device.

Image credits: SojournerInThisVale

#16

Packaging has got worse.

You no longer get a protective plastic lid for cream or yogurt.

Most of the ‘pull here’ lids don’t work at all anymore.

Large items like 24 cans of coke, no longer have a box that you can open easily to allow access.

Image credits: stevehyn

#17

F*****g fruit juice cartons.

Image credits: Hambatz

#18

Border control. You arrived from a friendly country, a civil servant in regular clothes glanced at your picture and you, maybe asked a short question about your trip, then it was “welcome home” and you got waved through. All done in seconds. Going to our neighbours in Europe and it was just the same.

Now they have facial recognition stuff that takes forever to recognise you, frequently fails to and directs you to a human dressed in an intimidating uniform who gives you the third degree. Before you even get to the control point you will be in a long snaking queue often being yelled at by an officious security type. Going to our neighbours there are long queues and passport stamps even if there are e-passport readers. Soon you will have to preregister online before you even leave (and foreigners coming to the UK will experience something similar).

Image credits: martinbaines

#19

Shops where the workers could do more than than tell you to go back home and call customer services. Looking at you Samsung.

Image credits: Away-Activity-469

#20

I had a vhs player that worked for 30years. Now when I buy a digital film, apparently I don’t actually own it and it could disappear.

Image credits: antimatterchopstix

#21

Google and by extention the internet generally.

Google used to give you a truly diverse set of results whenever you searched something. Now it gives you a few curated results which all say the same thing.

Image credits: anon

#22

Houses
My house is 150 years old and is built to last. Very little issues. I know 2 people who have a 'newish' build house (built within the last 10 years) and because of the extreme weather the UK has had with wind the past few years both their houses need serious work. Not a single shingle has come off my roof.

New builds in the UK are built like S***E. I used to work in construction retail and traders would even comment how out of line walls/floors would be when working in new houses.

Image credits: poyopoyo77

#23

I saw a tiktok that lamented the loss of detail in every day objects. Take metal bollards, for example. Across the UK, we still have beautifully forged metal bollards with fluted edges, crested designs and round plated tops. However, newer ones are just a galvanized steel pole.

Another somewhat outdated example from the UK are the differences between older and newer phone boxes.

Once you start seeing this loss of detail within the landscape it becomes difficult to miss.

Image credits: James-Worthington

#24

Light bulbs. I recently learnt that the longest burning light bulb was first installed in 1901.

I moved into my room 3 years ago and already changed 2 light bulbs.

Image credits: Freeedoom

#25

Things used to be made of wood, metal and glass. Now everything is made of plastic which doesn’t biodegrade, is made from oil and is weakened by UV light.

Image credits: Real_Ad1929

#26

Shoes

f*****g shoes

more and more cushion

don’t y’all notice that your feet hurt after wearing them all day?

i switched over to minimal shoes and have had zero foot pain at the end of the day. takes a bit to get used to, but 100% worth it and “regular” shoes hurt like hell after 30 minutes. Stop squishing your feet! The hell, balls of your feet, outside of the foot, and toes are what hold you up. Not your arch. Arch support in shoes spreads your body weight to parts of your foot that are not supposed to carry that weight all day long

If you have a foot injury, arch support can help put your foot back into a natural shape. If you never remove your arch support, the muscles in your feet will never get strong enough to support that arch. Need to be as barefoot as possible to get your foot back to how it’s supposed to be.

Image credits: Meatballing18

#27

Led headlights. The older halogens were just fine and better for everyone.

Image credits: zillapz1989

#28

2 Things.

Completed products. Before the rise of online gaming all games had to be completed before they could be pushed out and you couldn’t really do upgrades (although there were add ons). I gave up gaming when I had a PS4, every time I wanted to do anything it it needed time to do uploads. Just got sick of it.

Owning things. I hate subscription models. They are great for a physical thing you get every month but for lots of digital products they are rubbish. Give me the software and stop messing around with it. I’ve stopped caring so much about paying them now. If it can’t be owned, it can’t be piracy.

Image credits: Banditofbingofame

#29

Gaming. You bought a game, inserted in the console and it was working. You could play.

Now? 100GB update, then you need to be connected to the online, update game, then you need to buy dlcs to get complete experience, excessive grind and option to buy speed up perks, then years later, servers shut down and your own game doesn’t work anymore.. (examples, warzone has 100GB updates, pokemon scvi don’t have post game, to get anything resembling postgane, you need to buy dlcs, ubisoft games are infamous for their microtransactions of xp boosts in single player games, the crew is odd mix of single player game which needs constant Internet connection and they will close servers this year, making game unplayable for anyone who bought it).

Image credits: Rasty_lv

#30

Health service used to be more accessible and quicker for GPs and A&E.

Image credits: Whulad

#31

Tools, unless you’re paying through the nose for US, Canadian, German, French, Swedish, or UK made tools, most are made with craptastic cheese grade steels, you can get lucky and find some nice Taiwanese made tools which aren’t stupidly expensive.

I’ve recently got back into CDs compared to the craptastic cheap CD players I had when I was younger, CDs sound freaking amazing even better than lossless streaming.

#32

TV sound. Having bigger speakers In a bigger box produced a decent quality sound. We have a flat screen TV like most people nowadays and the sound was just ok. I’ve happened upon a home theatre amp and found on Facebook 2 speakers bigger than my child. The sound at the lowest of volumes really fills the room and my wife was genuinely shocked at the difference. My project was given tentative approval, but now she’s very happy. Getting the rest of the speakers now is a lower priority but being quite deaf it’ll be a massive help.

We were in Currys yesterday looking at new TVs and all they seem to offer is sound bars to go with them.

If I have one piece of advice it’s to get yourself down to richer sounds. They have things to help all budgets, even cheap bastards like me.

#33

Staplers, I’m sure the staples used to be able to penetrate more than twe sheets of paper.

#34

Online menus,it doesn’t hurt to just tell me what you have on a list at the very least.

#35

Cars. There was a point, early to late 90s when cars were just about perfect. They were mostly reliable and didn’t break down like cars in the 70s and 80s. They were still mechanical mostly, you could service them yourself and if you were handy with tools, you could fix a lot of problems yourself.
Now, car’s are filled with pointless electrical gubbins that can and will break down leaving you unable to repair yourself.

Electric handbrakes, automatic lights and wipers. Doors/boots that have motors to open them. LCD screen dashboards. Oddly shaped music systems that can’t be swapped out. Cards/button to start them and insanely complicated canbus system that control everything and require software update that only main stealers can install at extortionate costs. And batteries that effetely make the car a write off when they need replacing.

#36

I suspect it's more cost cutting or in some cases the cheapest available solution being used than stuff being technologically worse.

Seating on planes, trains and the general internal environment of them is far far worse than in the past, in fact I'd go as far to say that it is downright abysmal – even if the vehicles themselves are safer and far more advanced.

This gives the impression that some things are worse, because in terms of everyday comfort and lack of value for money stuff is, but the underlying technology isn't. Modern trains will be far more crashworthy than what they replaced, but internally they are utterly spartan sh*tholes filled with crammed torture rack seating compared to the relative comfort of the older stuff, and may often also be shorter than the stuff they replaced.

#37

Plastic packaging. Nobody needs blister packs and polystyrene can be replaced with the sensible use of cardboard. At one time, supermarkets used to give away paper carrier bags – now they care so much about the environment that they don’t have paper bags but will sell you a plastic carrier bag instead.

#38

Supposed fully automatic hand washing facilities in public toilets, restaurants etc.
Very rarely do they work. If you’re lucky you’ll get cold water to rinse your hands then have to leave with them wet or wipe on your trousers.
Worst case you get a squirt of soap and no water that you then have to wipe off somehow. Bring back manual taps, soap and push button drier.

#39

30 years ago you could post a letter and expect it to appear in a day. I’m lucky to see a letter within 10-14 days now.

#40

Multi stage authentication b******t. Either let websites track you constantly or have to use your password, then enter a 6 digit code that they text to you. F**k off!

#41

The fact that its now normally to pay £5 for a cup of coffee. And also £5 for a sandwich. 30 years ago you made your sandwich at home for your lunch break. By normalising pre-packed sandwich and a bottle of water its made lunch times, in general, a lot more expensive !
( oh i know its not tec related but i just needed to get off my chest).

#42

Maybe already said but fridges. I don’t need a coffin sized, Bluetooth connected cold wardrobe. I need an accessible, adjustable and flexible fridge that is not going to take up half the wall.

#43

Concorde for example is by pretty much every metric apart from speed worse than what we have today.
It was noisy, inefficient, uncomfortable and expensive compared to what we have now. The advent of the Low Cost Carrier and the next gen aircraft like the A350 and A220 are far superior for the 99% of travelers.

#44

Higher quality audio equipment is just plain wrong. The perfection of the mass production of the Class D amplifier, along with battery technology, means my tiny little JBL offers similar performance to much larger, mains powered amplification of old.

With the high end stereo equipment, that remains expensive due to requiring precision to produce, particularly when digitalisation isn’t relevant.

There is a point here though, that actually backs up your closing argument, that software and digitisation has allowed for reduction in reliance on high quality equipment.

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