The world is accelerating fast and we — the consumers — are playing catch-up. New gadgets and software updates promise to make our lives better, so we follow the latest innovations with anticipation, hoping to find a way to integrate them into our daily routine.
But as the trends march onward, some people choose the opposite approach and reject them, opting for things they have already been using for years. So when a thread emerged on Reddit, asking everyone to share the "obsolete" piece of technology they refuse to relinquish, many had their say.
From vinyl records to physical maps, here's the list of "relics" that still have their place in our hearts and homes.
I’m a school librarian - print books are nowhere near as obsolete as people seem to think. Kids still them!Regular buttons in a car instead of touch screen everything.I want my physical media. When all these companies start pulling licenses, selling them to new people, making it harder to access content, I want to be able to pull my Blu-ray, DVD, CD, or whatever other media it’s in off the shelf and watch it.USB drives for data storage.
I have trust issues with cloud servers, and dislike the idea of personal data being stored on file servers that I do not own and control.
"The Cloud" is nearly impossible to avoid entirely; I just minimize my use of it in favor of local backups with planned resilience and redundancy.Paper maps are considered by many to be obsolete, but they are essential for hiking or just being in an area away from civilization where cell service can be unreliable to nonexistent.
Edit: I've had about 100 replies informing me that maps can be saved so they work offline. I am aware of this. However it doesn't do much good when hiking on remote trails that aren't marked in any online maps. It doesn't help when you've unexpectedly driven into a large dead zone and didn't know to save maps in advance. And it doesn't help when leaving the phone behind for an overnight kayaking trip because of the risk of dropping the phone in the river. .Regular, non smart watches.A notebook and pencil. I find writing down lists, making plans or doing financial analysis on paper so 'clarifying'. The pencil must have an eraser on the end.Manual gearbox. Because it allows me to feel more involved in the driving process.Cast iron cookware. My $15 pan will outlast any nonstick pan you can buy. I can burn it, scrape it, and rust it out, and still recover it into new condition.Keys for opening my car door/starting the car.
I'm not down with the whole push-to-start/keyless entry thing.I prefer to spend cash. It helps my brain process the spending. I'm still bad with money but I got tired of swiping and praying.
A lot of venues are cashless now - hate it.Manual can openers. I hate the electric ones.Notepad and txt files!
They have no formatting and work in all situations. Across every device and every piece of software. And by every, I mean that you can easily hit a txt file with a hex editor and fully understand and manipulate it. The file size is small.
Since notepad has no formatting options, you can paste in any modern day c**p and it will strip out the annoying bits. It kills things like hypertext, color, italics bolding, size, and other font changes. It even does a pretty good job of ignoring non human readable characters.
In other words, it works 100% of the time and returns only the content that you actually want with exactly nothing else.Handwritten agendas/planners. Writing s**t out by hand in general.Books vs ebooks.Hand held compass. Never runs out of battery and has saved my bacon many times.Any non-smart device other than a smartphone. To hell with those devices collecting my data, serving me ads, and being a pain to maintain.It is not obsolete really. But my 1999 VW Golf.
I despise new cars and refuse to get one even if I had the money for it.
All these mandatory driving assistance features you cannot permanently turn off like lane keeping assistance combined with the f*****g subscription s**t they are putting out and the fact that you cannot repair your car unless you have the software for it.
I want a car to be able to do 3 things. Have AC, have good sound system, be able to get me from point A to B without breaking down. I neither need nor want all these extra system and they'd be fine if I could disable them and never worry about them again. I cannot so I refuse to get any new car until I can.Magnifying lenses. Why use a digital camera when you can use a magnifying lens that doubles as a solar death ray?Wired headphones.Wired mice on my PC. No need worrying about a battery dying and it’s not like I need to walk around the room far away from my keyboard carrying my mouse. Alas, they’re becoming less common. ?
(Wireless headphones are useful though.).Records. I still love the sound of them better than anything I've heard.Are wallets and billfolds becoming obsolete? I have friends who make fun of me for not just using a phone case that holds everything.CDs. I don’t pay for satellite radio so I just play them on repeat in my car.Fountain pens. I take a lot of notes because I do a lot of research and writing. I mean hours at a time. Featuring details I have to learn as I go. Fountain pens are the only kind of writing instrument I can use that doesn't tire out my hand. Or my brain. It gets out of my way and stays out of my way.Typewriters because they're just so beautiful.I wear a wristwatch. Not only is it not a smartwatch, it's not even quartz! It's mechanical, full of gears and springs and stuff.Wired headset, keyboard, mouse. Not interested in charging or needing to change any batteries.My 20 year old TI-83 calculator. So many good features.The Bialetti moka pot. Hard to beat, unless you have coffee shop grade espresso machine.Ipod Classic. 160GB with a clicky wheel.Oh man I am a total retro grouch. Vinyl records, old steel bicycles, safety razors, film cameras, the whole hipster gamut.Physical game cartridges.My landline telephone. It always works. No need to worry about a getting a, signal or needing a charge. I even have one corded one so I never need electricity. I did just get upgraded to fiber from copper however, not VOIP though so I'm certainly hoping all the same benefits are there. AT&T is deprecating the copper in the area and said "switch or be cut off." The technician made the switch and ran off before I got to really ask him anything!Analogue Mixer. I've had an all digital mixer (X-Air XR12) and it stressed me out. I play in a duo and it's much easier for me to just reach to the fader half blind than trying to move a line on a touch screen.
