i’m talking about things we use without a second thought that might seem utterly ridiculous or inefficient in 50-100 years. like landlines or vhs players seemed to us. what’s your pick?

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
    18·
    5 months ago

    Mod Notice: OP banned for being a bot.

    Question gets to stay out of respect to those who wrote answers.

    • Flamekebab@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I’m pushing 40 and I’ve never owned my own VCR. When I was at university a landline was thrown in with our internet connection but we didn’t have a use for it. Landlines have been irrelevant my entire adult life.

      • skull kid@lemmy.org
        1·
        5 months ago

        That’s crazy to me. My parents still have a landline, and I used my VCR maybe two months ago to watch my copy of The Land Before Time. I’m almost 30. I know I could stream it online, but it just doesn’t hit the same

  • treadful@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    Phones, probably. At some point we’re not going to be carrying these things around. Whether replaced by an implant or some kind of wearable, I have no idea.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@slrpnk.net
    31·
    5 months ago

    like landlines or vhs players seemed to us

    Ouch, hurtful. You know lemmy skews older, right?

    Anyway, here’s my answer: Toilet Paper

  • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip
    42·
    5 months ago

    Vapes - A shitty, ewaste laden, version of smoking. Where unknown chemicals are vaporized and inhaled. This took off under claims it was a healthier alternative to smoking. This is going to look like radioactive toothpaste in hindsight.

    Cable boxes - 30 years after high speed Internet, 25 years after ffmpeg, and 20 years after streaming… millions of people still pay $150 a month for a shittier, curated version of television that mostly required specialized hardware and drilling holes in your house.

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      high speed, stable, reliable internet also needs those holes, so that’s not really a problem. sure, today it’s better to build the house so that there are tubes in the walls for the cables

  • miguel@fedia.io
    1·
    5 months ago

    Net connected everything. The cracks are already showing but it’s going to get worse, and then it’ll swing back.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
    01·
    5 months ago

    Gasoline powered vehicles. Not only are they horrible for the environment and require toxic substances that impact people’s health, but they’re so expensive and high wear. All those moving parts, barely controlled explosions: WTF we’re those people thinking?

    As electric vehicles enter the mainstream, they’re just simpler, more straightforward, and you can plug in overnight like you do with your phone. The complexity, moving parts, excessive maintenance will be like steampunk is for us (I already joke about that) and people won’t comprehend having to goto a local gas station and handle toxic fuels to fuel up. What is an oil change and who would do that? They won’t be able to comprehend the lead contamination, breathing in benzene, groundwater pollution, etc

  • RegularJoe@lemmy.world
    12·
    5 months ago

    Analog clocks. Digital is so much easier.

    Fillings and crowns. The dentist will regrow teeth.

    Flashlights. You mean you carry a lighting device that does nothing else, when your phone can do that plus a million other things?

    Keys. We’ll likely carry a fob for most things. They’ll be programmable to allow us to adapt to our locks, like a universal TV remote.

    Fax machines in government. Someone in government will finally realize scan to email is so much cleaner.

    • ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      5 months ago

      Digital clocks might be easier for you, but not everyone. I chunk my time and looking at an analog clock helps me to visualize everything I’m going to be doing. I can’t do that with a digital clock. I will be the dinosaur clutching my analog clock when I’m old lol.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
      41·
      5 months ago

      I think you are totally wrong about all of these except the dentistry (and for that I simply don’t know enough).

      Analog clocks are not going away. They’re aesthetically pleasing, all the luxury watches are analog, all the smart watches have analog modes… I don’t think this is changing any time soon. One caveat: I hear there’s a trend where younger people (e.g. today’s teens and younger) often don’t know how to read analog clocks. So perhaps I can be convinced on this, but I still think they’re here to stay.

      Flashlights produce orders of magnitude more light than any smartphone. Headlamps provide light while keeping your hands free. Phone flashlights are useful in a pinch but flashlights are not ever going to seem alien, they might be more niche but not strange. In any event, this has already happened so you’re describing the present, not the future.

      Keys? No way. Every electronic locking system includes a mechanical backup for a reason: power outages happen, batteries don’t last forever, and electronics fail a lot more often than mechanical lock mechanisms. None of these facts will change. People don’t really like being locked out of their home then the power’s out, so you bet they’ll keep carrying keys.

      Fax machines are already out. A story made the rounds maybe a year or two ago about how Japan was finally going to stop using faxes, and before that Japan was one of the few (if not the last) to still be using fax. So again this is the present, not the future.

      Lastly, dentistry: man I hope that happens, it sounds great. But it doesn’t really fit the question, it’s not something we “use” every day, it’s a treatment to a medical problem. Advances in medicine aren’t they here IMO.