Music in restaurants and bars is just too loud. I know why the music is loud, but I am still going to shake my fist at it like Grandpa Simpson.
I'm not subscribing to anything. If I buy something, it's fully functional, and it's mine. There is no ongoing relationship between me and the manufacturer. Done.
It was totally uncool to remove the headphone jack from my device, man.
Cars shouldn't be loaded with user-facing technology. Bring back analog dashboards and buttons for climate control!
I don't want to have a subscription for everything. It used to be possible to pay a one-time fee for software and use it as long as I want. Now I have to pay a monthly fee and once I finish paying, I can't use the software anymore. And it's not like I constantly get updates for the software. Often it stays the same for months or years.
I understand that software has a price, but no way these prices are sometimes justified...
Smart tech in general is annoying and dumb. I want my TV to just be a tv with inputs, I don't need built in firmware and updates to shove ads in my face. I don't want my car to have a touch screen to adjust the A/C, just give me a knob or buttons.
Algorithms that try to suggest me content are universally bad, and all searches should provide results based solely on the terms, syntax, and language entered. Same with anything that tries to provide me content based on data harvested about my location or demographic.
Digital privacy is important, and it's important to be anonymous on the internet
I have three:
I'm 17.
I think two out of those believes stem from survivorship bias. You think of old music and consumer products as superior because the only ones that "survived" are the good ones. No one remembers bad music from 50 years ago, and for every old thermos flask/blender/knife that you see around there are dozens that broke years ago.
Sneaker culture is incredibly weird. Shoes made by children in China with a limited edition color are in such high demand that there are sites where people refresh F5 constantly hoping to have the honor to pay hundreds and hundreds for shoes that cost $7.50 to make. Then half of the time people won't even wear them outside, they'll put them in a bag and change shoes when they get to work or whatever. Or some might not even wear the shoes at all and just display them.
I'm an old soul in this sense. I love a quality goodyear welted shoe, and made in USA, UK, or Italy usually. An Allen Edmonds strandmok is a fantastic everyday shoe for me. I like to purchase nice things in general, use them, take care of them. I really hate throwaway culture as well.
Please nobody hate me for this, I'm a bit self conscious being an admin of my own instance and don't want to piss people off haha. If you're into gym shoe culture that's awesome. If I knew you in real life I'd probably make fun of you for a minute if I saw you walking outside in socks carrying your $400 limited edition sneakers, but then you can make fun of me for one of the thousands of things I do and it's all in good fun.
Then, I have a couple that pre-date even boomers by many years 😅:
I miss the era when the web was just this
Cities are too car-oriented
I agree with the sentiment, but this feels like the least boomer opinion ngl
You should be able to repair your own things, without too much money and effort
Things should be made to last and not be made to intentionally break after a short time.
Smart TVs are stupid and only exist to make ad revenue and sell user data. I'd pay extra for a TV like an LG C2 OLED but with no OS. Just a monitor that displays sources plugged in.
Alcohol is toxic, carcinogenic garbage and we'd be noticeably better off if everyone voluntarily stopped drinking it.
Basically any opinion of the modern Internet I give.
I'm a certified computer expert, but I sound like a Luddite when it comes to anything mainstream.
let me see:
I believe physical books are better than e books.
However, physical work documents are not better than PDFs! Why the hell do boomers print so damn much?
Not meeting up with friends at a loud venue, I like to talk to them not try to shout over the music.
I hate touch screens.
I hate QR code menus, just let me see the damn food options without squinting at my phone
As a person who works in tech and is an early adopter for almost every new gizmo out there, I feel that we were better off back in the day when stuff was all analog and things were done manually.
Sure it was inconvenient, but it made us experience the world more and actually interacted with real people. I have crappy social skills and I have seen the change in myself over the years. I get anxious when my phone rings now, as opposed to being excited back in the day.
This makes me think of a quote by Kurt Vonnegut:
“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “Okay, I’ll send you the pages.” Then I go down the steps and my wife calls, “Where are you going?” “Well,” I say, “I’m going to buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in the closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
I really believe that part of the loneliness and lack of community many people feel nowadays can be attributed to automating everything for convenience. We miss out on these brief interactions and meaningless smalltalk, giving us less chance to practice our social skills in low-stakes situations. I see the change even in myself; in my college days I didn't really experience much social anxiety since I was always surrounded by people, but now I sometimes find a quick trip to the grocery store somewhat difficult. It's really troubling to think about, and it makes me long for the analog past.
When I was a kid, I could go out and play with other kids on the streets, without fear of being snatched or hit by a car or worse. We made Judas ragdolls before Easter just to burn them, and use them for practical jokes. We used to play some child version of cricket, I've even broke a window of a neighbour doing it.
Children nowadays do not do any of those things dammit. What the fuck? How exactly are you growing up without leaving home? For some it's lack of desire, but for most of them it's outright lack of possibility.
Screw this shit. The world is becoming worse.
I want my Final Fantasy games turn-based not this action-RPG garbage, now get off my lawn!
I hate music streaming services and rather buy the songs to play them locally on my smartphone.
Every time a new technology comes out we think it's going to make our lives so much more simple, but what really happens is the expectations of what we should be capable of doing increase and as a result we take on more responsibilities. One example is cars. You can travel further now, right? Only, now it's normal to drive an hour to commute to work. Or now you have a wider area of travel you're expected to make to visit people you know.
My boomer opinion is that smartphones have done this in a big way. I'm expected now to be available 24/7 to respond to texts on a moments notice. Not responding looks rude. I've been in workplaces that had a culture of checking work messages on Teams on cellphones outside of hours (which I refuse to do). My friends will have long group messages that I'm expected to keep up with. All of this responsibility adds up to more stress than we had in a pre cellphone era. And that hasn't translated to better lives for us in the end. There are advantages and I appreciate many of the things our high tech era gives us. But part of me longs for that era where we just had to trust that people would show up to get togethers at the agreed upon times. When conversations were special because we didn't just have 24/7 access to each other. Where we had to decipher maps to take road trips. Where we were more present with each other. I was born in the 90's which puts me in a strange generation of people that only kind of remember what it was like before.
Drinking is not fun and loud parties too. Just understood, that I haven't had fun there most if the times.
Google Docs Editors is inferior to any office productuvity suite, and it's overused in the professional world.
I don't want your fucking Sheets link. Email me the Excel file with _v1 at the end.
Dating should go back to face to face meetings. People need to get out and see others more, just generally.
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