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75 “Normal” Things That Made Life In The 2000s Better Before Everything Became A Subscription
If you had a time machine that took you back to the early 2000s, you’d probably use it—and we’d be there right by your side, with snacks for the journey.
The early 2000s were a vastly different and—arguably—far better time than the endless global crises we face in 2026. Many things that were completely normal and commonplace back then feel rare and luxurious now, and internet users shared the ones they miss the most. You’ll find their nostalgic posts as you scroll down.
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#1
Not having to pay for a subscription for things like... Microsoft Word? You bought it once and you had it. Everything now is in a subscription format. I hate it.
RELATED:
#2
Quality. Things were better made, better quality, and lasted longer. If I got a pair of Levi’s, I knew they’d last forever and I didn’t pay over $50 for them. I didn’t have to watch out for words or phrases that suggested better quality than what they are (leather was leather, hand stitched really meant hand stitched, and you got ice cream and milk chocolate instead of frozen dessert and chocolate candies).
Millennials, members of Generation Y, are people born between 1981 and 1996. So, when the world rang in 2000 with optimism and hope, the youngest millennials were around 4 years old, while the oldest ones were around 19 years old, stepping into adulthood, going to college, and dipping their toes into the job market.
Though, depending on which researcher you talk to, they might argue that Gen Y can go back as early as 1980 and as late as 2004.
Broadly speaking, millennials are incredibly diverse, start off with less household income than previous generations, and face financial challenges like record amounts of student loan debt and stagnant wages. Members of Gen Y are ambitious and don’t put off things like their entrepreneurial ideas or travel plans. However, older generations might view this in a negative light, accusing them of chasing instant gratification.
#4
Privacy. Everywhere you go these days someone is filming everything around you. Every one of us is probably on hundreds of other people’s videos, and all of those videos are somewhere in the internet for everyone else to see.
Rick Murray 2 hours ago (edited)
Probably more concerning the mass proliferation of surveillance cameras, nowadays being tied to AI assisted facial recognition - because we all know AI never makes mistakes, and the police never abüse their authority....
#5
Owning things. Your home, your music, your software, your media... nowadays you just rent/subscribe and keep paying for everything endlessly all the time without ever owning it. Total scam.
#6
House parties - who owns a house that wants a house party like the ones we had back then!
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
In our defense, house party usually meant someone’s parents were away for the weekend
There is no ‘perfect’ period in history that is ever free from all problems. And yet, not all decades are alike. The 2000s had plenty of geopolitical, economic, and social problems. However, they pale in comparison with the permacrisis environment we have found ourselves living in in the 2020s.
On top of that, you have the subjective factor at play here. Many people feel strong nostalgia for the years when they were energetic, carefree, had few responsibilities, and made positive memories. For most people, this is their childhood or youth, though it can be any period of time.
So, with this in mind, it’s not just that the early 2000s seemed like a simpler, happier time to live in. If you are a millennial, you also yearn for the ‘good old days’ when you were younger and the future seemed bright despite the challenges.
#7
Shopping at thrift stores.
tamborinesandtequila:
Resellers have ruined thrifting. Greed destroys everything on every level.
#9
Food and rent being affordable. My first 2 bedroom was $750 and it felt like a lot. Packs of Mr. Noodles went on sale for 15 cents. I remember the first time I saw a $1.99 can of tuna in 2008. Housing. Definitely housing. My best friend's parents bought a 5 bedroom house for $120K in 2001. It's now up to $750K.
Culturally it was normal to just show up at your friend's house without calling. It was normal to call your friends without texting to see if they were around first. Now if someone calls without warning it's like, "Who's [deceased]?!"
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
My first two bedroom was $650 in 1993. Housing costs have gotten seriously stupid
Have you read through these millennials’ nostalgic posts and upvoted the ones you agree with? Once you have, we’d like to turn the discussion over to you in the comments.
What generation are you, and which decade do you miss the most, and why?
Which parts of life in the early 2000s do you think were vastly better than the current day? On the other hand, what do you value the most about life in the 2020s that the 2000s lacked?
Let us and the other readers know what you think!
#10
Being able to afford a home.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
I’m glad we bought when we did. Any longer and we’d have been priced out of the market. Prices are now absurd
#11
Calling an insurance company or doctors office or something and being greeted by a human on the other line and not a robot.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
The answer tree. Press 1 for whatever. And for most of them, pressing 0 no longer works to get a real human
#12
Real wood, not particle board or plywood. Lots of furniture used to be real wood for not that much money, now real wood furniture is an expensive luxury.
#13
Not being available to anyone at anytime because I wasn’t obligated to answer my phone because it’s always with me.
Rick Murray 2 hours ago
You know, even if it's in your hand and buzzing, you aren't *obligated* to swipe the green bar. Just ignore it, it'll stop soon enough.
#15
The internet still being locked away to your big robot box at home and not a thing that follows everyone everywhere.
#16
Being able to buy a run down house in a bad area for £45k. Long gone!
#18
Fast food. Seriously overpriced now.
#19
Spontaneity — running into people you know somewhere … discovering a restaurant on a walk in cold.
Elladine DesIsles 1 hour ago
I think this one has more to do with growing up and how one structures life around adult obligations, rather than a change in society. If you can make time to go for walks outdoors and vary your routes through the right types of neighbourhoods, you will discover new small businesses. And I regularly run into people I know - I just sometimes would prefer not to!
#20
Samples used to be every aisle at the grocery store.
#22
Having children?
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
One of my daughters has decided one is acceptable. The other two are d**d against them. And I don’t blame them. Children are ridiculously expensive in a society that seems determined to claw every dime away from you
#23
I know this isn't exactly the answer you're looking for but I have to say that it's sadly a luxury for a child to experience innocence and a good childhood nowadays.
With all the wars, hyper specialising and disconnect from reality that children are experiencing, they unfortunately tend to grow up so fast. When I compare my time as a teenager to teenagers today, my heart breaks for them. I used to look like my age while teens nowadays looks so much older. I used to dress and act so innocent like a child should. But children (of all ages) nowadays aren't allowed to act and be innocent for some reason. It's so sad.
#24
Sports. I hate needing 10 different streaming services for a season of hockey, NFL and college football.
#25
I’m not a millennial but spending every day of summer outside until it got cold/playing games like soccer or basketball with a big group of people that randomly got together because of close proximity only to become good friends.
#26
Seat selection included with your regular priced airfare.
#27
Boxing day sales where they were genuinely trying to get rid of stock at real discount prices.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
No amount of savings will get me out of bed on Boxing Day. I don’t need it that bad
#28
Affordable third places to hang out.
reddunyun:
See also: affordable first spaces.
#30
Concerts, sporting events. Used to be somewhat negligible, I was 16 and going to concerts all the time and the ticket price was never something that even factored into whether or not I would attend. Now I’m an adult with way more money than I did at 16 yet concerts are wayyyy more unaffordable for me now than they were back then.
#31
Going to a concert or show and not staring at a sea of phones and tablets. You can still have that experience in some countries, but definitely not in the US.
Ticketmaster, in your omnipotent greed. I will pay 5x (!!!) the ticket price for a venue where phone/tablets are strictly banned from being in view and the rule is harshly enforced. I rather pay 1000-2000 bucks to see a concert properly, than 200 bucks to stare at screens the whole time.
#32
Free samples. And free gifts in magazines.
sofacushionfort 3 hours ago
Postal delivery workers in the 80’s would gag from being trapped all day in vans full of magazines with cologne-drenched inserts. That’s something I doubt they miss
#33
Does anyone else just miss the VIBE of our day? Like just 15-20 years ago things felt so much lighter… things felt fun, a little more care free than now. Idk i wish i could explain it better but just thinking about life in general it just felt so much easier even when things were still really hard.
#35
Health insurance that was almost completely covered by your employer with only a $500 deductible.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Not going there. Tired of beating on the US healthcare system. We know it’s bad, they know it’s bad. It’s prolly never gonna change
#36
Going to the bar. Drinks used to be so cheap and now it feels like you’re throwing a $20 everytime you order one.
#37
Candy bars were like $0.50-1.00. Now they are $3+.
#40
Time. You can relax much more, do things much slower, listen to a song or watching something as much as you want before the next big thing comes. I felt like more people were able to come home and relax after work compared to now.
Obviously some things were more annoyingly slow (internet) but at least that wasn't monetized the way it is now where everyone is trying to be the next big thing by hitting algorithms. It allowed for some out-of-left field creativity.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Try turning off your phone/tablet/computer and picking up a book, talking to your partner, going for a walk. We are partly responsible for the world we have created
#41
Family cabins. Now owning one property is too much let alone two for middle class families.
#42
Everyone being so consumed by how they should be looking and trying to live up to Kardashian standards. I miss when people didn’t do everything for the gram and didn’t need everything to be so perfect all the time.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Or you could try just not giving a good goddàmn what anybody else thinks
#43
Haircuts. My folks took me every 6-8 weeks until I was in my teens. I can only afford to get my kids one or two cuts a year total. I haven't paid to have my hair cut in 8 years, despite desperately wanting to, because I can't justify the expense.
#44
I miss when people didn’t have to monetize every single thing. Nowadays, and yes society has a large blame for this since so many of us are struggling, but people make so much profit on things and the greed is insane. Just watching shark tank, you see how many people’s margins are extremely high percentages. Then occasionally, you’ll see good people who come on the show and don’t want to make huge profit because they have good hearts. The sharks don’t like that, though. And that’s because the world has succumbed to greed, profit, and monetization on everything and anything possible.
#46
I remember the first ipads we got - every game on there was like .99 or 1.99 or something but it was your game... no ads....
and speaking of ads - just fewer ads all around back then.
#47
Cell phones ruined parties for kids. There is little to no evidence of what we got up to in the 90s. If you brought a camera you only took a few pictures and nothing was posted online. Film was expensive to get developed.
#48
Beef being a dinner staple. The surge in beef prices have made classics like burgers a special occasion.
Elladine DesIsles 1 hour ago
To me, this is a good change. Admittedly I'm biased as a vegetarian, but the fact is, our planet cannot sustain large-scale beef production. I don't generally judge the dietary choices of others, but if we all want to continue to live in a habitable climate, beef needs to be an occasional choice, at most. There are plenty of other ways to make burgers.
#49
Magazines with CDs in them, though I did see one at B&N recently. It was like between $15 to $30.
nottheactualphoto 1 hour ago
I remember magazines having flexi-disc records bound in. Like Time or Life magazine would had a record that was an ad for some Time-Life recorded music product.
#50
Hanging out at the mall.
I despised it at the time, or at least the aura of the act due to how aspirational it was to everyone, but now I find myself wondering what in-person socializing does anyone aspire to? Bring back the friggin mall.
#52
Going to the movies. It was so inexpensive and something to look forward to. Now it’s $100 for 3 people.
#53
Just walking around the mall and being able to buy stuff with my birthday money or paycheck from my summer job.
#54
Road trips with friends. It's not that my friends don't want to go on them anymore, but we can't afford the cost anymore.
#55
Having an offline device to play music.
I tried to find a decent mp3 player recently, to get away from music streaming a bit, and there are so few decent options out there nowadays. If you want a good one, it’s £££s. Yet when I was a teen, getting one was so easy, even if you didn’t want to pay for an iPod.
#56
Healthy liquid savings accounts. Gen X and before were raised to believe that we should all have a minimum of the equivalent of 6 months’ net take home pay in liquid savings - those days are goooooone, and the average American can no longer go more than 2-4 weeks without a job.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Because wages haven’t risen with the cost of living. By the time you’ve paid rent and bills and bought food, there’s nothing left over for savings. And no amount of coffee and avocados is gonna make a difference
#58
Going out to eat or get snacks. I remember I used to work at a meat packing plant the summer after I graduated highschool in 2015. Paid $11 per hour only and I felt like I could eat out way more often.
#59
Niche websites run by passionate hobbyists of a given subject, and having a collection of bookmarks for a given subject, trading said links with peers like baseball cards.
#61
Clubbing for me!
In the UK pubs used to close at 11:00pm and clubs would close at 01:00am. We used to get ready and be in the pub by 6:00pm for the cheap beer and a game of pool or darts, then shots at the bar at 09:30 to get across to the queue for the club before it got too big. In by 10:00, dance till 01:00, grab a Kabab, bran a cab and by home by 2:30.
It was perfect and didn’t [ruin] the next day completely.
#62
Drivers Ed classes offered in high school (US). This was a very accessible resource for just about every student, and it's just about phased out from what I've heard.
#63
Reading an actual book. Actually reading anything not from a phone.
Elladine DesIsles 2 hours ago (edited)
This is a choice. I own about 3000 books, and frequently read 3 or 4 in a week. Actual, paper books. I just gave my niece two trilogies (six books) for her 10th birthday; books are what she asks for. In fact, she deliberately asks me very broadly for books in general, rather than specific ones she wants, because she prefers to see what gems I'll find for her that she's never heard of; I think that's one of the best compliments I've ever received. Her little sister will probably asks for LEGO when she turns 7 soon, but books would be the second choice, and she will end up reading her sister's hand-me-downs either way. There is nothing stopping people from reading real books, if we choose to, and teach our kids to do the same. But we do need to protect public libraries and fight book bans, to make sure everyone continues to have that opportunity.
#64
A quiet train/bus ride, without people playing things out of their phone speaker.
#65
Cheap chicken wings: "10 cent wings and $5 pitchers of beer!
nottheactualphoto 1 hour ago
Me to the waitress: "Let's have a pitcher of [cheap beer]." *Turning to friends* "And what do you guys want?"
#66
Really specific, but bowling. It was cheap. Now it’s like $90??
#67
Video games used to come in large hardcover book-sized boxes that took up space on your shelf. Usually a booklet with instructions and lore was included, artwork too. Now these are collectors items.
#68
Saying 'g2g' to end a conversation lmao. Conversations over text never really end, just suddenly someone stops responding, and there’s always the expectation that the convo can/will be picked back up to continue indefinitely.
#69
Affordable nursing homes for relatives.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Not sure about anywhere else but in Ontario, Canada, rates are set by 5he provincial government to make it even for everyone
#70
Is it just me or does anyone else remember quarter arcades being quite common? The really small ones without restaurants in them. Usually next to a laundromat or tailor. Now they feel like clubs and you have to buy tokens.
nottheactualphoto 1 hour ago
They were in the shopping mall. Dozens of games, and change machines so you could get quarters.
#71
Going to Vegas and enjoying it without it feeling like a tourist trap.
Colleen Glim 2 hours ago
Vegas IS a tourist trap. If that’s not what you want, go somewhere else
#74
Being able to run to the store any time of night, 2am grocery runs were very common for me back in the day up until Covid.
#75
Magazines were everywhere. There used to be stacks on every table in every waiting room and racks on the walls with them, huge racks with tons of choices prominently in every drug and grocery store. And they were way cheaper than they are now. A magazine was like 3 to 5 dollars. Maybe ten max for a special double issue.
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sofacushionfort 2 hours ago
Who knew that when a nation lost a war that their economy would tank, even if they didn’t have to pay reparations? That’s what happened in America fifty years ago. Then corporations saw the opportunity to convince the politicians and a good chunk of the population that deregulation was the only way to stop the downfall. A few years later, with the opening of China/Globalization and the Digital Revolution, the protections had been removed just as the waves hit. That’s where we are now, and, just to out-stupid ourselves worse than fifty years ago, the new fix is being promoted: authoritarianism.
sofacushionfort 2 hours ago
Who knew that when a nation lost a war that their economy would tank, even if they didn’t have to pay reparations? That’s what happened in America fifty years ago. Then corporations saw the opportunity to convince the politicians and a good chunk of the population that deregulation was the only way to stop the downfall. A few years later, with the opening of China/Globalization and the Digital Revolution, the protections had been removed just as the waves hit. That’s where we are now, and, just to out-stupid ourselves worse than fifty years ago, the new fix is being promoted: authoritarianism.
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