do you like 2000s tech because…

[rnottelovesowls]

…nostalgia? or because it was an era where tech products actually worked properly and didn’t try to inconvenience your life with subscriptions, ads, tie-in smartphone apps, nonexistent customer service, necessary wi-fi connection, and chatbots?

discuss

[laserdream]

Both. I don't know how much better it was back then and it's likely it wasn't but I do wish things at least still just... worked.

[xrossmediabar]

Wasnt alive during most of the 2000s tech prime, but it had a fine line between usability and looking nice. Nowadays its just ugly

[Vaking Voda]

I wish stuff worked… without an online account, without a subscription, without disregard for UX, etc.

Not only that, but something we have is our old stuff from back then, and it just works.

[777]

I like it because its more durable and efficient than the ones today, one pair of pants now lasts 2 weeks whereas the ones form when i was a wee nutcase i can still wear nowdays. Same goes for cameras (god dammit sony)

[MacroNemesis]

If you don't mind me doing some late night ramblings probably a bit of both. Sure, some of this skewed rose tinted glasses from being a kid with not care in the world until like 2015. But there are somethings that feel different now.

There's this tendency toward simplistic and minimalist design. Whether it be logos, websites, ui ect. It can look good but I feel like 2000s-2010s had more personality and style behind the design. Everything feels so uniform now.

Also, as other have mentioned, I miss not everything being locked behind a subscription and become software/streaming as service model. This increasing erosion of ownership of media and software is something I'm increasingly becoming concerned about. Be it games, video, or music to name a few. Yes i know techinally they were still "licences" even back then but I didnt risk losing the media or software until the physical medium broke, or I lost it or something!

That's why I've been backing up what media I can, support gog, look into linux and self hosting options to combat ever increasing enshitification of services. Because I know how it used to be even if there is some good in the modern world.

Finally I realized i sort of missed when devices had more of a singular purpose instead of do it all on the portable black box (which im typing this on). Much in the same vain as "the computer used to be respect" or "the internet used to be a place" train of thought. I dont know if i want to go back to that 100% but I feel like it helped compartmentalized tech use. Argueably this also in part due to lack of control over our own devices as well, but I that physical separation might be helpful much in the same way one room should not be the eat, sleep, entertain room of your house.

[Bumhug]

IMO the tech was superior. It wasn't all designed to to include a big funnel to aggregate and abscond with your personal data. It was possible to be anonymous because there weren't a buttload of content networks, free service providers, & other types of shady corporations (or the government) working to aggregate data on you to track everything you do online and tie it to you personally via normal tech devices. These days you have to be pretty technical to be able to evade all that stuff to any degree because it's just so baked into almost every electronic device you can buy. Back then you didn't have to wonder what kind of data your electronics were going to scrape from you or worry what could happen if that data is correlated with other data from your other devices (because none of them were spying on you).

[rnottelovesowls]

I like it because its more durable and efficient than the ones today, one pair of pants now lasts 2 weeks whereas the ones form when i was a wee nutcase i can still wear nowdays. Same goes for cameras (god dammit sony)

this is true. this is why i only buy used clothes from thrift stores if i want “new clothes”. i don’t trust shein, temu, or aliexpress to provide anything good

[Patachoo]

I don't really know how to explain this feeling, but 2000s techs for me carry this idea of "tech is fun", an ideaful vision of a technological bright future but still in union with humanity, when brands dared to try a lot of differents tech design, some of them were not pratical or quite useless, but that was fun, and this is an idea I still want to believe today with tech : it's supposed to be fun and to make you feel happy, and not being anxiety-inducing

[lakes]

i think it's a bit of both
i'll be honest. my relationship with tech in the 2000s wasn't healthy either. but at least that unhealthy usage was less common. nowadays it feels like everyone has social media addiction or a youtube addiction or a discord addiction or what have you. i miss when media wasn't an endless stream of content that was meant to be consumed endlessly while half-paying attention to your 5 am to 10 pm job