22 Everyday Things Made Obsolete This Century
22 Everyday Things Made Obsolete This Century
Check out the picture on the right.
You are looking at the interior of a 2010 Lexus SC 430.
You are also looking at the last production car to come with a cassette tape deck.
Starting with the 2011 model year "no manufacturer selling cars in the United States offers a tape player either as standard equipment or as an option on a new vehicle," reports to the New York Times.
PDAs
Remember that trusty stylus? The once-awesome Palm Pilot had no chance with the advent of the Blackberry, and then, of course, the touch-screen smartphone.
E-mail accounts you have to pay for
In a word: Gmail.
Dial-up
Static... dial tone... repeat a few times... ah, internet!
Definitely won't miss that process.
Getting film developed
Does anyone actually do this anymore?
Movie Rental Stores
The massive popularity of Netflix and Video-On-Demand has made it virtually unnecessary to go to an actual store to rent movies. Blockbuster is feeling the shift -- the company is set to shut down 960 of its stores this year alone -- and we bet they don't last long into the new decade.
Maps
No more getting lost on those epic road trips... just punch in your destination into your GPS or smartphone and you're good to go.
Does anyone else find this one a little bittersweet?
Newspaper classifieds
Mainly thanks to Craig Newmark, the internet became the place to go to find a job or sell your old couch.
The Landline
With wireless penetration in the U.S. currently at 89%, it's no surprise that many people are using their mobiles or internet voice services as their primary way to connect.
And when we consider the fact that about one-fifth of American households were wireless-only as of June 2009, it's not hard to conclude that the landline is on its way out.
Long-Distance Charges
In the same vein of VoIP and cell phones, it no longer costs extra to make those cross-country calls. And Skype and various other free internet chat services make international calls totally free (at least for now).
Public pay phones
Obviously. Even homeless people have cell phones now.
VCRs
DVD players first outsold VCR's in 2002; by 2004, they were outselling them at 40 to 1. Combine that total shift to digital movie-watching with the development of DVR, and you had the inevitable death of the poor VCR.
Fax machines
With the advent of the e-fax, and considering how annoying regular faxing can be, we think it won't be long before everyone's taking a bat to their fax machines.
Phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias
Our old bastions of data have been fading fast over the last few years, replaced by -- what else?-- the internet.
Note: there are still at least 101 other useful purposes for those gigantic tomes.
Calling "411"
Want to find out the locations of the closest 50 starbucks in a 4-block radius?
Forget wasting time talking to an all-knowing automated voice, and thank your lucky stars for Google maps.
CDs
Poor CD's. But could anything really have withstood the amazing convenience of digital music and the worldwide adoption of the iPod? As album sales dropped by another 13% this year, it's only a matter of time until the CD becomes just a relic of times bygone.
Ditto to the gold ol' Sony walkman.
Backing up your data on floppies or CDs
This decade, we said hello to sleek external hard drives and tiny thumb drives.
Getting bills in the mail
Envelopes! How quaint. The ease and speed of online bill-pay and banking, plus the environmental incentives, will probably make mailings obsolete soon.
Buttons
Bye, bye buttons -- the iPhone seems to have sent us hurtling towards a touch-screen world straight out of Minority Report.
Losing touch
Social networks have practically erased the possibility of ever losing touch with anyone.
The downside: you can no longer use that as an excuse for never speaking to your creepy first-year roommate again.
Boundaries
Boundaries also went out the window with the huge popularity of Facebook and Twitter.
Not surprisingly, this is not always a good thing ... especially when it comes to your mom.
Paper
Probably the biggest casualty of the decade. With most communication now conducted online, magazines and newspapers crumbling, and e-readers increasing in popularity, paper is now on serious life support.
It's likely we'll look back and say that, after a 2,000 year reign, paper was killed by the noughties.
Bonus: Record Stores
Check out the picture on the right.
You are looking at the interior of a 2010 Lexus SC 430.
You are also looking at the last production car to come with a cassette tape deck.
Starting with the 2011 model year "no manufacturer selling cars in the United States offers a tape player either as standard equipment or as an option on a new vehicle," reports to the New York Times.
PDAs
Remember that trusty stylus? The once-awesome Palm Pilot had no chance with the advent of the Blackberry, and then, of course, the touch-screen smartphone.
E-mail accounts you have to pay for
In a word: Gmail.
Dial-up
Static... dial tone... repeat a few times... ah, internet!
Definitely won't miss that process.
Getting film developed
Does anyone actually do this anymore?
Movie Rental Stores
The massive popularity of Netflix and Video-On-Demand has made it virtually unnecessary to go to an actual store to rent movies. Blockbuster is feeling the shift -- the company is set to shut down 960 of its stores this year alone -- and we bet they don't last long into the new decade.
Maps
No more getting lost on those epic road trips... just punch in your destination into your GPS or smartphone and you're good to go.
Does anyone else find this one a little bittersweet?
Newspaper classifieds
Mainly thanks to Craig Newmark, the internet became the place to go to find a job or sell your old couch.
The Landline
With wireless penetration in the U.S. currently at 89%, it's no surprise that many people are using their mobiles or internet voice services as their primary way to connect.
And when we consider the fact that about one-fifth of American households were wireless-only as of June 2009, it's not hard to conclude that the landline is on its way out.
Long-Distance Charges
In the same vein of VoIP and cell phones, it no longer costs extra to make those cross-country calls. And Skype and various other free internet chat services make international calls totally free (at least for now).
Public pay phones
Obviously. Even homeless people have cell phones now.
VCRs
DVD players first outsold VCR's in 2002; by 2004, they were outselling them at 40 to 1. Combine that total shift to digital movie-watching with the development of DVR, and you had the inevitable death of the poor VCR.
Fax machines
With the advent of the e-fax, and considering how annoying regular faxing can be, we think it won't be long before everyone's taking a bat to their fax machines.
Phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias
Our old bastions of data have been fading fast over the last few years, replaced by -- what else?-- the internet.
Note: there are still at least 101 other useful purposes for those gigantic tomes.
Calling "411"
Want to find out the locations of the closest 50 starbucks in a 4-block radius?
Forget wasting time talking to an all-knowing automated voice, and thank your lucky stars for Google maps.
CDs
Poor CD's. But could anything really have withstood the amazing convenience of digital music and the worldwide adoption of the iPod? As album sales dropped by another 13% this year, it's only a matter of time until the CD becomes just a relic of times bygone.
Ditto to the gold ol' Sony walkman.
Backing up your data on floppies or CDs
This decade, we said hello to sleek external hard drives and tiny thumb drives.
Getting bills in the mail
Envelopes! How quaint. The ease and speed of online bill-pay and banking, plus the environmental incentives, will probably make mailings obsolete soon.
Buttons
Bye, bye buttons -- the iPhone seems to have sent us hurtling towards a touch-screen world straight out of Minority Report.
Losing touch
Social networks have practically erased the possibility of ever losing touch with anyone.
The downside: you can no longer use that as an excuse for never speaking to your creepy first-year roommate again.
Boundaries
Boundaries also went out the window with the huge popularity of Facebook and Twitter.
Not surprisingly, this is not always a good thing ... especially when it comes to your mom.
Paper
Probably the biggest casualty of the decade. With most communication now conducted online, magazines and newspapers crumbling, and e-readers increasing in popularity, paper is now on serious life support.
It's likely we'll look back and say that, after a 2,000 year reign, paper was killed by the noughties.
Bonus: Record Stores
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