In the last decade, we have seen a trend that our gadgets and electronic devices have become faster, stronger, smaller, and more usable. As a result, their older counterparts retire and land in a hidden account at best and in the trash at worst. However, there are stuck gadgets, media, etc. for which better solutions already exist, but the habit prevents us from replacing them. Lots of such objects are still lurking in most of our rooms.
CD
The classic CD was a huge breakthrough: an easy-to-write and read medium that adequately served the storage needs of music, movies, and games until the late 1990s. He also created a culture of copying data at home, as well as perpetuating a musical “mixtape” culture. Unfortunately, it is already lagging behind the new formats in terms of both quality and storage: not only DVD but also Blu-ray is beating it up, not to mention cloud and flash-based devices. Nevertheless, to this day, (mostly) music CDs can be found on store shelves, and we can even find writable versions.
PDA
There was a time when the combination of taking notes, recording, and calendaring was still a huge innovation in a mobile device. This niche was seized by PDAs, which turned into the repertoire of plenty of people who worked with information. However, the proliferation of smartphones has made them redundant, and today they have remained relevant only to a few very narrow strata, also as a maximum work tool for these.
Camera
Who wouldn’t have had a digital camera at home in the late ’90s / early 2000s? These few megapixel cameras were perfect for the tasks of everyday “routine photography”. Plenty of family photos, travel photos, and randomly fired, completely black images were kept by these machines. By now, however, we’re slowly getting there that some smartphones can compete not only with traditional digital cameras but also with professional studio cameras. Not to mention that it’s completely unnecessary and inconvenient to already carry these with us when our mobile camera is capable of the same spell.
Music players
Or the third station for the victims of the mobile revolution. They have evolved a lot over time, from cassette Walkmans, Discmans to endless variants of MP3 / 4 players. There have been attempts that have been successful to this day (iPod), there were ambitious but soon riders falling on their own sword (Zune), but for the most part they have in common that since the arrival of mobile devices with huge storage and countless streaming services, these gadgets have not had much legitimacy.
Landline phone
In addition to the fact that everyone is now using a mobile phone, there is another reason why classic landline phones have become useless. Although this type of phone was included with the Internet connection at the time, it is no longer an exception. Most of these devices now adorn only the memory of a bygone age, without any particular function. Well, of course, there are some that still rarely operate, and in fact, they are still used in offices, but for the most part, households have already switched to mobile (even if not smart).
And now we can’t imagine our life without a smartphone. There are very few things you can’t do on a smartphone. From online shopping through movie watching, communication to playing online casino games.
You might think life was harder back then. But you’re wrong. Life was so much easier and simple back then. People didn’t have that big of an expectation. All they wanted from their phone is to be able to call another person. Can you imagine your life that way?
FAX
Also the saviors of the past decades. The essence of Fax is that with the help of a robust machine, one party can send scanned documents to the other by entering a telephone number. Despite the fact that there were once offices where Fax machines hardly stopped by the end of working hours, they have now become completely redundant. Email and the Internet have made it easier to manage documents, not to mention that they can now be digitally edited and transmitted.
VHS and DVD players
While only the former is considered a fossil, playing DVDs is no longer a common stunt these days. The proliferation of digital video repositories has made a significant contribution to this, and there are also streaming services such as HBO GO or Netflix. If that weren’t enough, the format is no longer too sophisticated for today’s needs. Blu-ray is superior to its predecessors in every way, not to mention that the current consoles play these discs.