12 Obsolete Technologies Americans Still Use

http://www.livescience.com/37004-12-outdated-technologies-refuse-to-die.html

by scholia • 13 years ago

4 14 13 years ago

taylodl• 13 years ago

In other words poor people, people living in rural areas and people in niche markets are using old technology. Hardly a surprise.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

Fax machines are the big one. They were obsolete ten years ago and still cheerfully screwing up documents and wasting paper today.

I'd argue that the printer and books pretty much qualify.

rkalfane• 13 years ago

But then, fax machines are still the fastest and most usable way to transmit paper documents.

It's way easier to fax something, than to scan and send it, then having the others print it. I think that we haven't found a good replacement for the fax machine.

AdrianRossouw• 13 years ago

i'm pretty much a convert to hellosign.com

most documents I deal with never make the transition to paper in the first place anymore.

numo16• 13 years ago

I get the most enjoyment out of people who keep fax machines around because they think it is more secure than email.

snogglethorpe3• 13 years ago

Books?

Maybe one day when somebody comes up with an adequate replacement...

varkson• 13 years ago

I can't tell if this article is supposed to be mocking these technologies or justifying their use.

I don't see why landlines are dying, mobile phones are way too expensive for general use. Hell, I don't think I know anyone who doesn't have a landline.

eitland• 13 years ago

Serious?

Where I live (across the pond) cellphones are the cheaper alternative.

Landlines are all swapped for ip "landlines" or mobile phones not only for convenience but also for price.

scholia• 13 years ago

In the UK, you have to have a landline (or cable) to have a wired Internet connection.

snogglethorpe3• 13 years ago

Cellphone pricing can be a bit of the wild-west...

I have unlimited free calls to anybody with the same carrier—but calls to other carriers are really expensive, much more than a payphone.

[I'm actually surprised this is even legal, but ...]

J_Darnley• 13 years ago

I'd take a CRT television or computer monitor over any widescreen flat display. The one I have next to my some-what old LCD looks much better when playing video. It can render 640x480 games correctly without some horrible scaling artefacts.

I also wish there were still more pay phones in my local area.

mordae• 13 years ago

Actually, I can see why people want Dot Matrix Printers, http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers sums it nicely.

Also, CRTs don't have only disadvantages, as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube#Advantages_and... explains.

The problem with faxes is that people continue to (wrongly) assume that you can't spoof them. Especially now that you can fax arbitrary PDF.

jemka• 13 years ago

Consumerism: Use something because it works (regardless of its age) and we'll mock you for not replacing it with something newer.

If you use these products and they work for you, awesome. You know who misses out on the benefits of you switching? Corporations.

So laugh at others for saving money while you spend half your paychecks on what's new and cool, just because it's new and cool. /rant

snogglethorpe3• 13 years ago

A fairly stupid article, which seems to be pushing the silly idea that as soon as neat new tech A becomes popular, old tech B suddenly becomes completely obsolete and useless. The "cult of the new" you might call it.

In reality almost all new tech, even that which is a good general replacement for something older, involves tradeoffs. Sometimes the bad points outweigh the good ones for use-cases slightly out of the mainstream. In other cases, the advantages of the new tech simply aren't great enough to warrant replacing something you already own.

[I own a (small) old CRT TV. A new LCD TV might be neat and appeal to my gadget instinct, but ... why bother? I don't really use it so much, and the old one works well enough. I just don't care about it very much, and would rather spend the money on something I do care about.]

12 Obsolete Technologies Americans Still Use

Related Stories