Things that are meant to be better but are not better

[CrocsNotDocs]

Look, I’m not a Luddite- I usually love technology.

But why oh why have headphones jacks been removed from phones and tablets? I don’t want Bluetooth headphones or earbuds that I have to worry about charging before I go anywhere and that cost a zillion dollars. I want cheap old fashioned headphones that don’t go flat that can be plugged into your device and just work. I don’t want to use the charging port for headphones- I like to charge my device while using it. I want headphone jacks back.

YABU- Everything new is always better
YANBU- some things were not broken and should have been left alone

😭😭😭😭😭😭 Poor Clippy.

I think that's a bit different, though, as you're only using a machine to record and 'pass on' a message to a human, who will hear it and respond appropriately.

With Alexa and the like, you're actually relying on the machine to 'understand', process and respond to you directly, with no other human involvement at all.

Meta facebook. It's worse now. Trying to change a password on Facebook was once so simple. Now you follow the instructions to change it and then it says "you got to go to your accounts centre for that."

Digital gift cards. You get an email. Make an account. Then have to figure out what voucher you want to 'buy' depending on where you want to spend it. But then have to make sure you can spend it online/in person. Then download an App and log in. Or you get emailed a bar code where you can't check the balance. Just gimme a swipey card in an envelope that tells you where you can spend them!!

Oh yes to this a thousand times - I miss my cd's blasting out on a long journey

I think that is just for those you can use at multiple retailers and restaurant chains. If its for just for one retailer or restaurant chain, you just scan/swipe card and online, enter the card number.

Another two. Squeezy bottles of sauce where the cap is at the bottom. Get sauce trapped at top. Then spray bottles where the straw (whatever it’s called) doesn’t hit the bottom of the bottle. Got a spray oil - actual oil, not the chemical crap of Frylight (it ruins non stick material) and the ‘straw’ stops 1cm from bottom meaning I can’t spray. Spray pump is welded on so have to bin it when there’s c25ml left!

You can use centrifugal force to get it down.

Oh my, yes. Those bloody things. If you try to clean the top, it thinks you want to turn it on. Argggghhh.

Those electronic price shelf price tickets which some supermarket chains use. Sometimes the display disappears, lines go through it etc.

This all reminds me of Sirius Cybernetics in the Hitchhiker’s Guide - Share and Enjoy!

On buttons versus touch screens - donkeys years ago as a marketer, I read quite a bit about the history of Usability and the way you should get feedback when you do something so you know it’s done - like a click when you press a button or turn a dial. Not only more satisfying but it means you know you’ve done it properly. Apparently it started in the 1940s with fighter pilots and they redesigned plane cockpits to be as simple and tactile as possible so that you didn’t have to think twice about which lever to flip when you were heading for the ground at terminal speed. In fact “Don’t Make Me Think” was the title of a highly influential book about web design, which sought to put these principles to good use online by making sure the user knew exactly how to get to the next page in a nice short process.
Unfortunately I think since the invention of the internet of (pesky) things and touch screens, all this useful hard earned wisdom has gone down the toilet, and now my 96 year old DF can’t use his oven or his telly properly because they’re too bloody complicated and devoid of actual buttons!

Clippy was always an arsehole. “It looks like you’re writing a letter!” Yes, I am and I don’t need a fucking animation to help me do it.

The little bastard deserved everything he got.

The engineer looked at me like I was mad when I insisted the “smart” meter be installed in dumb mode.

“But it can communicate directly with your energy provider!” Yes, and having had the fuckwits at SSE attempt to charge me the GDP of a developing nation each month because they fucked up the billing, that’s exactly what I want to avoid.

I talked to someone in a second hand game and CD/ DVD store the other day who told me (to my surprise) that sales have gone up recently. He said streaming services often have a movie or series then pull it again and it leaves users frustrated so they come in and buy the boxset or a favourite movie. I also miss the visible personality stuff when you go into someone's house. I used to love looking through a friends CD or DVD collection or bookshelf.

As for your original question OP, just about everything! Tech had gone too far and become too embedded in our lives. Haven't rtft but I can't be the only one who wants to scream when I have to download an app and go through about 20 online steps to pay for parking. I could give a million examples. I feel like we are no more than puppets to a very small group of rich powerful US companies who control our lives.

Touchscreen anything. Including this phone. I want proper buttons on this thing!

It took me over 5 minutes to figure out how to turn off my new phone today. The power button just brings up the Google AI assistant; why has Google changed the usage of the most obvious button of all?

And AI assistants can FOTTFSOFATFOSM!

Ha, @Yellowhammer09, I wondered why they'd changed the name of that button to "The Side Button". Which side button was unspecified. One side button does volume (and gesturey malarkey if you can be arsed, which I can't). The other side button does power, or it did.

I was so pissed off at this inchoate instruction, I abandoned the mission and can't even remember what it is I was trying to do. And now I daren't turn off my phone 😂 Or ... should I say I daren't side button my phone? Fuck knows.

Far be it from me to praise the BBC, but surely the News at 10 on BBC1 is exactly what you describe?
And I still buy DVDs and CDs, mainly at classical music venues.

While it’s great that you can easily find out how to do most things on the internet, I don’t always want to be forced to watch videos (and adverts). I want instructions I can read.

@MotherOfCatBoy Absolutely. I remember a long article in New Scientist about that, in the mid 90s. Some points I remember were:

National Rail ticket machines (pre touch screens) wanted the destination first, then ticket type. London Underground wanted it the other way round. It was this basic inconsistency that was a problem. Woe betide you if you got it wrong - you were punished by having to wait for the error message to clear; but at least there was some feedback.

Cash machines learned one lesson: they give you back the card first, followed by the cash. It used to be the other way round, but people would grab the cash (what they had come for), and forget the card.

Video recorders were considered the worst culprits for being difficult to use, covered in tiny buttons which nobody uses; for example, a button to change in or out of British summer time. One button used twice a year, which could be pressed by accident; and most people wouldn’t bother with it anyway, they’d look up the conventional method of changing the clock. Steven Fry once said in a sketch comparing himself to medieval man said “I have a new video, although I don’t know how to work it”.

Many government websites are now good for clarity; all wording brief and to the point. But Amazon - forget it, little buttons everywhere, and if you click the prominent “buy now”, you get signed up to Amazon prime by stealth.

Trying to buy stuff on Amazon without getting sucked into signing up for a free Prime trial requires skill and concentration. It's almost like a video game where you have to avoid the monsters!

If I wanted to take a screenshot on my previous Samsung Galaxy phone I pressed a button simultaneously on each side of the handset - worked perfectly well. On my latest one you have to press 2 buttons on the same side of the phone. It is so hard to do - I just can't seem to do it and instead send the volume blaring.
It worked perfectly well the old way, so why the hell change it to something worse?

@RaraRachael, I swipe with the edge of my hand. Much easier!

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10002500/

They call it Palm Swipe but you don't do it with your palm .🤷‍♀️ I am also fed up with the 21st century's disregard for the actual meanings of words!