Have you ever noticed that your grandparents' old fridge just keeps on ticking, despite often being multiple decades old? Or the home screen of a new phone has a Christmas tree’s worth of lights and color on it for no good reason? Well, you aren’t alone.
Someone asked “What's a piece of 'obsolete' technology you still use today because it's better than the modern version?” and people gave their favorite examples. From good, old-fashioned knobs in their cars to, thankfully, not-smart home appliances, get comfortable before you read through, upvote your favorites and be sure to comment your own suggestions below.
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Any non-“smart” things. Light bulbs, doorbell, washing machine, fridge, etc. I don’t need any of them to connect to the internet. Just do the basic job and don’t break or quickly become obsolete, please.
Knobs in my car to control radio and heat/ac. So much safer than screens
Not exactly obsolete, but I've been told it's odd in 2023. I buy physical CDs, rip them to my hard drive, put a copy on my phone, and listen to my music without ad interruptions or subscription costs.
Edit: and for all you "bUt ThAt'S mOrE eXpEnSiVeR!" folks, no it ain't. I'm in my 40s. I listen to mostly the same s**t I listened to in the 90s, and I've already had most of my music collection for 25+ years. I'm buying 3 new CDs a year, max.
Paper menu… why you making take a picture of a square, go to a website and squint on my phone to see what you got to eat.
My friends took me out to dinner, I'm waiting for the person to bring our menus, and my friends said it on their app. What the f***k? they had to download that square thing, to then download something else, I don't need all this c**p on my phone, I already disable a lot of the stuff on it, now I gotta add more, and it makes life harder? No Thanks
Books. I take books out the library, read them, return them. Seeing what books are available on my “want to read list” is a fun game in itself.
Opening a damn web browser and going to a store's website instead of using an app, if the option is there.
Paper and pencil.
Way better than trying to write or draw on an ipad
Wired headphones. Wireless airbuds make me irrationally angry, it just seems so frivolous and easy to lose.
100% all kitchen stuff like kitchenaids, mixing bowls, old Pyrex, old wooden spoons, Dutch ovens, ect all were better before the 90's newer items of all these things especially Pyrex are flimsy. The appliances have planned obsolescence and new Pyrex baking dishes I'm scared to even use in the oven because I've had 2 explode on me. My old ones I inherited from my grandmother never given me an issue
I read an article a while ago that said there is a difference in "Pyrex" and "pyrex" The brand Pyrex sold their name to a company that makes cheap knockoffs, which has the lowercase "p" at the front of the name
A few years ago I was really broke and had no car, so I bought a 1997 Buick Park Avenue with 200,000 miles on it. That car lasted all the way up to 350,000 miles. Yeah, stuff broke on it, but it was so easy to fix and parts were so cheap.
I had zero mechanical skills, and I was able to bring that car back from the dead on 3 separate occaisions with incredibly basic tools just by reading a manual.
They literally do not make cars like that anymore.
Can opener. The manual ones work just fine, I don't know why an electric one that takes up space on the counter 24/7 when it gets used for all of 10 seconds is necessary.
I still use Adobe CS6 because paying monthly for software is some b******t.
monthly payments and subscriptions on everything is b******t in general
F*****g leaf rake.
Leaf blowers are a scourge. In most cases they save 10% of the time it takes to rake, while annoying 100 people at once.
My job is restoring/conserving obsolete objects (mechanical clocks), does that count?
Cash. I live in one of the most digitalized countries in the world and we are already so cashless that some places don't even accept cash anymore, even though they're still required to by law.
I still insist on paying with cash to everyones annoyance. It doesn't rely on power or internet and it's anonymeous, the latter being important to me.
I do charge when I am eating out, but leave a cash tip for servers. I tell them, they don't have to claim it all on their taxes.(oops, any IRS folks out there?)
Books and traditional media. Harder to navigate than the online ones, but kind of stimulates the brain more with less distractions and more peace.
I can read online books fine, but there's just something about holding a real book that can't be compared with digital.
A normal paper calendar. Idk why i just don't check the calendar on my phone, and I sometimes use a 50 something year old radio because it sounds nice, especially when my headphones run out of battery.
Pen and paper works so much better than Android notes.
As someone with doctor handwriting, the notes app has been a godsend for me tbh
If I can find something that’s not reliant on electricity to operate, I’ll opt for it. I have a hand coffee grinder instead of an electric one. I have a French press instead of a coffee maker. I have a hand crank pasta maker instead of a motor operated or a kitchenaid pasta attachment. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m trying to find items that can end up being heirlooms, that’s how well built they are. F**k planned obsolescence, honestly.
These people have never heard of the joint problems of old age...
A manual transmission, for a given definition of "better"
Every car I've ever bought was manual transmission. Easier and cheaper to drive and repair
DVD and Blu-ray. Streaming is almost never at anything approaching full resolution.
I like that I can actually own media and never have to worry that a service will lose their license to carry it. I have bought some digital copies of films out of desperation (like being stuck in a hotel room during a storm) and I never feel like I really own the movie. Plus, the complex ins and outs of negotiating music rights for movie soundtracks means some films might never make it to streaming.
My fountain pen.
I have a Parker 51 from '69. It's just so smooth
And classy. There's something so sophisticated about using a fountain pen.
Cursive
The person that wrote this note failed penmanship class or is high af. 😵💫
Actual address book. I have many in my phone. But when I’m doing Christmas cards/invitations/announcements, I go to the book every time.
The old "unsafe" gas cans that don't leak gas all over the place.
My old ones always leaked. But the new ones have a spout that sticks out well past the edge of the can, so you can bump into it and knock the spout right off. And that's supposedly safer.
My #7 Griswold cast iron skillet. Small logo so it isn’t that old, but it’s from 1938-1957. I use it to scramble eggs, bake cornbread, chocolate cornbread, quiche, and kielbasa, and I love it. It is way better than modern cast iron, the company polished the interior surface to make it super non-stick.
Chocolate cornbread??? I have never heard of such gloriousness before. Now I NEED some!!
Mechanical wrist watch. Technically keeps worse time than a $12 quartz Casio but they are amazing little machines/engines you can wear on your wrist (and are still only off by a few seconds a day).
I still use a washer from the early 2000’s. It’s very analog. Parts are easy to replace and it keeps chugging along. We have a local appliance shop that still stocks parts.
My parents buy a new washer about every 2-3 years because of technology issues.
Mines ugly, but it works.
Now, that being said, if and when I upgrade. I’ll probably upgrade to a speed Queen.
Planned obselescence is a great example of just how terrible humans can be. Make deliberately inferior products so the rich get more money whilst the rest have spend money unnecessarily. All while stripping the planet of resources it doesn't have and animals of their habitats. F**k planned obselescence and f**k the people getting rich from it.
My wife recently cancelled Disney+ and brought out this massive collection of old VHS tapes to make the kids go through. I had forgotten how awesome it is actually owning a copy of a piece of media, instead of having to search online to see what platforms it might be streaming on.
I enjoy talking to a person with instead of doing something purely online. (Some banking, customer service, general questions about product...etc...)
Older vehicles, easily repaired, fraction of the cost of new
At 17 I learned to drive in a 1971 Mercedes Benz belonging to friends of the family— and old Betsy Benz is still up and running today!
I still have a micro cassette player that i have since 1988. I recorded my dad, my mum, who have passed away, myself when I was 18. It’s priceless. It stopped working recently but I just replaced the belt and it works now perfectly.
Awwwww. I miss my walkman Sony .........my best years at highschool
Old tools. My garage sale planes are as good as anything made today. My panel saw is perfect. Now, there's a bunch of survivorship bias and sharpening going on here, but I love them.
Old tools are always good. The guy that fix's my truck have almost 70 years and have old tools and he is awesome fixing trucks and sometimes I help him and learn. Don't underrate old tools or old ppl, they are wise .
I love analogue photography!
I recognize that a digital camera is better in most respects like resolution (unless you're using large format cameras or special film), number of images, image rate, immediate results, ability to delete images without recourse, and so on.
But I have yet to handle a camera that feels as nice as a solid all metal mechanical marvel from decades ago, still working fine today. Even if not, these can still be serviced and handed down for generations.
Plus you can try many different types and formats of cameras for a fairly low price.
A double edged razor. Much better and closer shave, it eliminated razor bump and ingrown hairs for me, new blades are $.10 when purchased 100 at a time from many online vendors.
Heh, even older - I shave with a straight razor! I work in South Boston and drive by Gillette every day. Phooey on your 9-blade, $20/each replacement costs!
I have a really nice binder that holds 3-4 small notebooks in it that I use for work.
I transfer the major projects and such to Microsoft ToDo or OneNote, but for day to day note-taking, absolutely nothing beats pen and paper.
Original Nintendo DS. Never once has that video game device given me an ounce of trouble or forced me to buy some subscription service to be able to play my games. Maybe not the most advanced, but definitely the best-lasting tech gadget I’ve ever been gifted.
Old dumb tv. Turn it on and it works. My smart TV takes minutes to turn on and load, download and install mandatory update, freeze up, restart, play ads, then freeze up again when I try to select what I want to actually watch.
Pretty sure these TVs don't work in our country anymore. NZ has only digital TV since 2013. OK if you're just watching DVDs, but otherwise, no TV.
Analog alarm clock. No electricity no problem. And the alarm is gentle.
I use VLC media player. It's been around since like 2000, and it's much better than the built-in video player which doesn't even support streaming or any advanced features that VLC has.
I just really wish I still had a blackberry. Damn i LOVED that keyboard!
VCR player.
We have three VCRs here and a huge library of tapes. One of the VHS players is a backup still sealed in the box. One is for our regular movie watching, and occasional recording TV. The last one is a dual DVD/VHS burner player thingamabob. We use that to convert one type of obsolete media into another :)
I used to wear a smartwatch. I travel internationally a lot for work now, and it was annoying that I had to connect to the internet to access the app to change time zones. So now I just wear a $20 Casio that lets me cycle time zones at the push of a button. Extra bonus is I don't need to charge it, which is convenient on its own and one less cord I need to bring.
edit: Never knew it was even called this, but after many comments: yes, it is a Casio Royale. Never even knew it was a whole thing, it was just what I grabbed off of Amazon at some point. Love the thing though.
This is peak reddit pretentiousness. Almost nothing listed is "outdated", it's just a bunch of redditors trying to beef up their egos. "oooh, I use a paper calendar not an app" - yeah, so do millions of others buddy. That's why there's calendar stores in every shopping mall before xmas.
For a lot of them, though, they automatically back up the data so if something happens, you're not totally boned. If you lose a physical daytimer, you have no idea what your appointments were. House fire? All your physical photos are gone. Whereas if my phone breaks, all the photos are still in my apple account. If my laptop quits on me, my schedule still exists. I don't lose any info because it's all backed up. That's one of the major conveniences of using technology. I agree there are a lot of downsides, but I think we tend to over-romanticize the past without remembering the downfalls there too.
Load More Replies... Practical effects in movies... and music! This is sort of cool: I always thought of Pink Floyd as a synth band because they were so cutting-edge in sound. But it turns out they use synth a lot less than I thought. Shine On You Crazy Diamond was recorded with 500 crystal glasses. They also used a clavinet, which is an amped clavichord, a Wurlitzer piano, a Rhodes piano, glass harmonicas (spinning crystal glasses), pedal steel guitars, tape effects, a Hammond. Don't get me wrong: they also used a minimoog and two different EMS synthesizers. The difference is that when bands like Styx went Hi-def they suddenly sounded cheesy, because the synths weren't designed for such realism, but higher-fidelity music players just make Pink Floyd sound better and better. (Although a 67 RPM vinyl stil sounds awesome.). Yeah, those crystal glasses so beautiful in Shine On Pt 1!
(Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos LOOK like synthesizers, but they're actually based on amplifying the noise of tuning forks struck by hammers.)
Load More Replies...
This is peak reddit pretentiousness. Almost nothing listed is "outdated", it's just a bunch of redditors trying to beef up their egos. "oooh, I use a paper calendar not an app" - yeah, so do millions of others buddy. That's why there's calendar stores in every shopping mall before xmas.
For a lot of them, though, they automatically back up the data so if something happens, you're not totally boned. If you lose a physical daytimer, you have no idea what your appointments were. House fire? All your physical photos are gone. Whereas if my phone breaks, all the photos are still in my apple account. If my laptop quits on me, my schedule still exists. I don't lose any info because it's all backed up. That's one of the major conveniences of using technology. I agree there are a lot of downsides, but I think we tend to over-romanticize the past without remembering the downfalls there too.
Load More Replies... Practical effects in movies... and music! This is sort of cool: I always thought of Pink Floyd as a synth band because they were so cutting-edge in sound. But it turns out they use synth a lot less than I thought. Shine On You Crazy Diamond was recorded with 500 crystal glasses. They also used a clavinet, which is an amped clavichord, a Wurlitzer piano, a Rhodes piano, glass harmonicas (spinning crystal glasses), pedal steel guitars, tape effects, a Hammond. Don't get me wrong: they also used a minimoog and two different EMS synthesizers. The difference is that when bands like Styx went Hi-def they suddenly sounded cheesy, because the synths weren't designed for such realism, but higher-fidelity music players just make Pink Floyd sound better and better. (Although a 67 RPM vinyl stil sounds awesome.). Yeah, those crystal glasses so beautiful in Shine On Pt 1!
(Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos LOOK like synthesizers, but they're actually based on amplifying the noise of tuning forks struck by hammers.)
Load More Replies...