airplanes, microchips, vaccines, lenses, lasers, windmils, solar cells, … the list is endless !
Cars… old cars were indestructible death traps. Crumple zones kill the car and save the human
Not even indestructible, just big heavy destructible death traps!
There’s a video floating around of a midsized sedan from the 60s and the 00s in a frontal offset crash and the old car is absolutely demolished.
If you say so.
(to be fair, “better” is a silly/useless entirely subjective metric for anything, stronger usually means heavier, lighter and stronger often means too expensive/resource intensive to be practical, “made better” might be a lesser quality but more profitable product to a capitalist piece of shit, etc)
I’m having a hard time believing the first picture is a real airplane. Are you sure it isn’t a mock up? The width of the cabin rivals the 787 I flew on from Japan.
Cars. Some people like to talk about how sturdy cars used to be, but with all of the advancements in safety, if I were in a head-on collision between an old Plymouth and a Toyota Prius, I’d much rather be in the Prius.
Kids toys.
Back in my day, toys over promised and under delivered, especially if it had any kind of electronics. Everything required extra imagination back then, sometimes stretching it to a point of disillusion.
Devices with touchscreens
Except in cars, for some reason
Cars are just brutal on electronics hardware, from vibration to heat and cold changes, to sudden bumps and direct sunlight.
That said, they could definitely improve the software that it uses to avoid it responding slowly by not including things like unnecessary transitions or trying to have it do everything and a ham sandwich. Most of the problems with the software remind me of shitty printer drivers with extraneous bloat and lack of optimization.
Car interface design seems like its gone backwards. I’d much prefer a tactile button I can feel and push without looking than having to mess with a touch screen.
The fucking low fps on navigation maps, the laggy response on touch input, goddamn
Pocket computers
Aka cell phones
My phone’s hardware is more stacked than my PC at this point and that blows me away
Batteries?
rocketry
cost of transport to space (orbit) has dropped dramatically in the past 20 years.
from 8000$/kg in 2000
to about 2500$/kg with falcon 9 in 2010
and still dropping rapidly.source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-cost-of-space-flight/
Houses. Mainly talking about asbestos and lead.
Scopes, binoculars, and telescopes.
Engines. 300hp out of 2L is impressive. It scales even better. V8’s can put out insane numbers.
For real, internal combustion engines are made way better than they used to be. Both in terms of reliability and power output.
You can get a small, ICE only (non-hybrid) car that gets 40+ MPG. You can buy a new car with a warranty that makes over 800 horsepower.
The IC engine is at its peak. Electric is the future, but the current crop of ICE are incredible machines.
Halloween costumes, diapers, foldable chairs, microwave food, frozen pizza, brakes, fuel injectors, airbags, paint, beginner instruments, spicy pork rinds, instant coffee, home espresso machines
Computer hardware is constantly improving. Sure, the software is getting worse, but there are good alternatives to that either already existing, like in the PC space, or being worked on, like in the mobile space. Also this is ignoring price gouging of PC hardware.
Display tech has gone a long way since early LCD TVs started being a thing. Granted, I still think CRT is a better technology overall, but modern TV panels do a great job of coming close in quality, while having its own benefits and drawbacks.
Good quality audio is becoming more affordable, with $20 IEMs sounding incredible for the price (Moondrop Chu II specifically) and ~$100 planar magnetic cans being available.
iphones
these things are fuckin crazy these days
Porn
What items AREN’T better than they used to be?
There is absolutely an abundance of cheap crap options out there but almost everything has a much better equivalent available today.
What? Like all appliances break easier and are un-repairable while only performing the same or marginally better than their old counterparts.
Also clothes are way less hardy (though I concede they are cheaper, often softer and don’t bleed in the washer as much) I don’t know that I’d call them better.
Cheap clothes are crappy. More on this story at 11.
You can still buy well made clothes that’ll outlast the person wearing them, they just cost more.
For a lot of things that “they don’t make like they used to,” a few companies still do make things that way, but everyone else has gone with way cheaper methods and materials. You get used to this lower price, and grumble about lower quality.
People in the past used to have way less stuff, because it was all more expensive. For example: old houses don’t have closets because you could fit all your clothes in a single dresser. When you’re forced to buy/make expensive stuff, it had better damn well last.
Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing, but it’s not always the sole reason cheap stuff sucks.
