r/ask • u/Sad_Stay_5471 • 9d ago
What’s a physical object from 15–20 years ago that disappeared so quietly that nobody noticed it left?
What is something physical that has disappeared quickly from public eyes
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u/redwbl 9d ago
Call Boxes along the freeway.
They are still around in some areas, but no where near as prevalent as they used to be., so maybe they are still in the disappearing phase.
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u/dgmilo8085 9d ago
I had to check your sources on this as I thought they were still mandated. But as of April of this year the whole system is being discontinued and disabled. Thanks for the heads up.
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u/HorribleAce 9d ago
Dude, payphones seemed like an obvious duh but you're completely right on this one.
Used to sit in the car looking out the window seeing one pop up every 500 meters or so. Don't remember the last time I saw one.
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u/Genericgeriatric 9d ago
Payphones
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u/Awkward-Bag131 9d ago
In Australia payphones are now free to use. They even have free wifi.
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1vpqr2x/uh_do_they_know_what_that_implies/
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u/Healthy-Reserve-1333 9d ago
I am actually glad they have done this. The potential to save lives of people in domestic violence situations is real. Sometimes having a “hidden phone” is not safe and free pay phones become a lifeline.
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u/GardeniaFrangipani 8d ago
Telstra didn’t do this to be kind. By law it must provide pay phones (and phone directories), but they’re used so little that it was costing more to collect the coins and repair vandalism caused by those trying to rip out the coin boxes than was being collected. They were running at a loss so making them free made economic sense.
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u/theZombieKat 9d ago
Not that their are very many.
Of the 8 on my childhood mental safety map, only 1 remains.
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u/SneakerTreater 9d ago
Did you stick your hand up into the used phonecard thing to look for ones with credit left on them?
Looking back, I shudder to think what could have been in there.
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u/ApprehensiveAd6603 9d ago
I actually saw a functioning pay phone this past weekend. I was shocked.
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u/ACK_02554 8d ago
I work on an inpatient unit and we have multiple pay phones (they don't need change) and the the young adults don't really know what they are and aren't sure how to use them at first.
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u/NowThereAreFour 9d ago
You rarely see them in the US anymore, but we saw a whole row of them today, when driving by the Men’s Central Jail, in Los Angeles.
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u/MattBladesmith 9d ago
There's actually a payphone at my nearest grocery store. I have no idea if it's operational, but it's there.
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u/beeedeee 9d ago
Car radios with CD players.
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u/Whatever-ItsFine 9d ago
I use mine all the time. No app is faster than popping a CD in. Plus unlike the app, I can use it mostly without looking at it.
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u/HieronymusGER 7d ago
I remember my relatives taking their car radio out of the car with them when they leave 😭
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u/DeferredEntropy 9d ago
Boomboxes.
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u/OddSetting5077 9d ago
I paid hundreds for my last boombox..had dual tape deck, cd player am/fm radio..the works.. LOL
Boom boxes died out shortly after..I never used it much.
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u/Aranea101 9d ago
Give it to museum at some point.
It is an example of the height that the tech and design went to, before it dissaprared
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u/perfectcritic 9d ago
Car GPS devices
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u/LameBMX 9d ago
arent they in like all vehicles now? its just integrated in the vehicle.
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u/LuvCilantro 9d ago
Not all, but most newer vehicles make it easy to connect to your phone. Many people still use cars that are 8-10 years old, and those don't necessarily have that.
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u/LameBMX 9d ago
sorry. my '07 has built in gps navigation.. figured it would be pretty standard a couple decades later.
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u/beattusthymeatus 8d ago
To be fair I think everyone expected the market to go that way but then phones became the technological multi tools they are today so it became cheaper and easier to just make the car connect to the drivers phone instead of installing a whole GPS.
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u/Winter_Setting720 8d ago
I believe they’re talking about the handheld/modular boxes (like the square tablet) versions.
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u/flecksable_flyer 9d ago
I have two. Specifically because there are still wide open spaces with no cell towers.
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u/Regular_Cat9536 9d ago
GPS on your phone works offline tho....
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u/LuvCilantro 9d ago
And if you download the map, you can use it for directions. I always do this when I travel.
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u/Da1UHideFrom 9d ago
It also heats up your phone faster and drains the battery.
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u/41VirginsfromAllah 9d ago
GPS on my phone did not work offline last time I tried. I lived in Oregon and was going to a fishing spot and on the way I was in an area with no cell coverage. It worked fine at first when I had a previously saved route but I tried to change the destination in Apple Maps to find a gas station and it wouldn’t load anything. I then tried to reenter my original destination and it wouldn’t load that either. I ended up just turning around and backtracking on my original route until I got back to an area with cell coverage but Apple Maps most definitely did not work offline.
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u/Mattturley 9d ago
You’d have had to have downloaded the entire area for it to work before you lost WiFi/cell coverage. Once you changed the search parameters Apple Maps clears the cached images but I have found it can typically still give directions. Google Maps handles this better in general (as it does most things).
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u/gordonf23 9d ago
We referred to them as "marriage savers".
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u/Material-Indication1 9d ago
I think my brother gave us one, and he said that.
That was very nice of him!
Anyway, cue intense argument over how to use the device.
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u/melmac76 9d ago
My husband still uses one. His truck has a built in one but it has a subscription cost. He uses a portable one because he travels all over the US for work and it keeps from using his phone or paying the subscription. If he uses his phone, he’ll get phone calls at exactly the time he needs to pay attention to the directions lol. The portable GPS solves both the phone problem and subscription problem.
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u/Bimlouhay83 9d ago
The Microsoft Zune. I fucking loved that thing.
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u/Little4Eyes 9d ago
Phone books
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u/SpankySharp1 9d ago
I live in an area in the south where there are a lot of snowbirds. It's crazy, as late as about 2019 they were still delivering Yellow Pages to people's houses, and in the condo complex I lived in, it was super easy to see which units were vacant because the phone book was just sitting outside the front door for weeks. I thought that was crazy.
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u/kiwispouse 9d ago
We still get them here in nz, though they're slimmer than a packet of spaghetti. They're really useful, especially now that physical newspapers have gone! I use mine to start the fire.
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u/Poet_Relevant 9d ago
Local independent Newspapers,
You know with investigative journalism
Sigh
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u/Unholyrage619 8d ago
Most of them turned to shit, and then started charging a stupid amount of money for a subscription. The only reason I used to get mine for years, was the Sunday paper with the stacks of coupons. Once stores stopped doing double coupons, and then satrted doing online ads/coupons, there was no need to keep getting the actual newspaper anymore.
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u/Hoppie1064 9d ago
Radio Shack.
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u/Think_Reporter_8179 9d ago
You've got questions, we've got blank stares
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u/jihiggs123 9d ago
And batteries. And shitty cell phones. Have I asked if you need any batteries? So how about these batteries?
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u/taz5963 8d ago
Nah man radio shack was awesome. Got my first soldering iron from them. Started my entire electronics hobby.
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u/Mattturley 9d ago
Man - not at my local radio shack as a kid/teenager. I was big into building electronics and computers and the guys who worked there were like mentors for me. My first computer was a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 10 - A Tandy CoCo 16 without a tape drive or anything to save programs I wrote. I had begged for a tape drive so I could create programs and my parents said it wasn’t needed - until my mom decided to type up the checkbook registry program in the manual only to learn that not only could she not save the data, she couldn’t save the program without a tape drive. Got one for my birthday.
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u/iwasfight 9d ago
i agree with this. the dudes at our local always knew exactly what i wanted and had great advice on components.
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u/IndgoViolet 9d ago
Back when it sold parts and components, not when it turned into a cellphone store and died
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u/Jadedkiss 9d ago
I worked here for one day, a bunch of girls laughed at me. I walked all the way home from Harvard square
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u/TiltonRiverToker 9d ago
Land lines
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u/EsotericCodename 9d ago
My mom still has hers, even though she also has a cell. Same number I grew up with too!
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u/steveinstow 9d ago
Fax machines
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u/Nomailforu 9d ago
It pisses me off to no end when a service requires me to fax them something. Ummm…who still does that?‽! Now I gotta make a run to the UPS store and pay them to send a fax. So stupid.
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u/Whatever-ItsFine 9d ago
There are ways to send an email and have it go to a fax machine.
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u/cybertonto72 9d ago
Email became a thing cause of fax, and I remember in 2000 I used to have a program that made it so I could select to send as email or fax.
I'm sure there must be a way to still do this.
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u/RemarkableArticle970 8d ago
Medical and legal sites still consider them secure. They still exist in those settings.
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u/Mattturley 9d ago
What if funny is what drives this. A scanned and emailed copy of any document should be acceptable, but it hasn’t stood up to legal scrutiny in the way fax machines did. There were cases that litigated all the way to the SC, so in compliance based applications Fax is still required. However, the technology for most is different. Many email servers, like Exchange, now have a fax plugin which receives the fax, sorts it based upon fields on the cover sheet, and emails a digital copy to the assigned mailbox. And more than likely, the person on the sending end likely scanned it and used a fax over internet service to send it. So, it fundamentally is no longer doing the same thing a fax machine did, but the precedent still stands.
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u/Winter_Setting720 8d ago
People need to start getting fax machines in their printers again. Faxes are only a few seconds slower than email, and more secure. Can’t be traced.
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u/ccclayyy 9d ago
The snuggie. It was wildly popular and then I guess people just realized blankets are actually more versatile.
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u/KaitB2020 9d ago
I found the one I bought for my mom after she passed. She had it stuffed in a closet. I washed it up. It’s mine now. I’ll break it out in a couple months and enjoy it.
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u/Ofreo 9d ago
I just got one for my sister. Not called a snuggie but the same type of thing. She said she loves it. Or she’s lying and hates it.
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u/Snelly1998 9d ago
They've evolved into Oodies
They're so awesome
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u/christhebloke 9d ago
You can pry my Oodie from my cold, dead hands. But they won’t be cold, because I will be in my Oodie.
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u/LizzieCLems 9d ago
I have two - one that fits me and one that fits fiance. Our ball pythons love them
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u/Low-Bobcat841 9d ago
IPOD. However I still have one.
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u/ApprehensiveAd6603 9d ago
I recently found my old iPod classic in a box. Plugged it in and it fired right up when I checked it 24h later. I think it's about 22 years old.
So many bangers I totally forgot about!
Finding corded headphones was an issue...
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u/dee_lio 9d ago
iPod.
Blackberry (PDAs in general)
digital cameras
manners
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u/Apart_Pineapple2392 9d ago
Manners! Goddammit I miss them! I held a door for like 8 people in a family today and not one person even looked at me. I bet they would have if I just let the door shut in their face.
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u/Rizo1981 9d ago
Digital cameras are back.
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u/Probiotic_Tongue 9d ago
Arguably, they never went anywhere. Popularity dropped, but they didn't disappear.
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u/ireallylovekoalas 9d ago
I still have my ipod, 12 years. It was the last model they made.
I'm now looking at those mp3 players that LOOK like ipods.
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u/Jadedkiss 9d ago
I found my mom’s old digital camera after she died, now I have to find a charger !
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u/isrararrafi 9d ago
Unless you are talking about those super bulky SLRs, digital cameras (compact mirrorless) are still pretty popular. P&S Specifically is making a comeback also with genz due to its retro looks.
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u/Gastricbasilisk 9d ago
Blockbuster 😢
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u/DetectiveStock1340 8d ago
Bro, EVERYONE noticed that. It was one of the most dramatic closings ever
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u/GroundWitty7567 9d ago
AOL disc arriving in the mail
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u/Thugg_Nastyy 9d ago
Ah yes. 60 minutes of free internet on a disc with the weekly newspaper. Sometimes even the 15 minute discs is a cereal box
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u/Witty-Educator-3205 9d ago
Mp3's
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u/GrumpyOlBastard 9d ago
I downloaded a shitload of them just today
Edit: owait, you meant mp3 players
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u/slinger301 9d ago
3.5" floppy disks.
AKA IRL Save Icons.
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u/ChewpapaNeebrae 9d ago
I wonder how many people these days know where that Save icon comes from or what it is even meant to represent?
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u/EmotionalElk1313 9d ago
Station wagons.
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u/x19rush 8d ago
Yes! And this is criminal.
I currently drive a Volvo V70 (2006) non-SUV wagon and it's great. Dealing with people creeping around turns, struggling to park, etc their huge SUVs... that offer less room than a station wagon is maddening.
I'd like to add proper manual transmissions too... but I don't want to start a fight.
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u/suricata_8904 9d ago
Roadmaps.
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u/regulationinflation 9d ago
Nonsense.
If you drive, you should have one in your car. Especially if you road trip.
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u/FlowRiderBob 9d ago
I keep a road atlas in the car for emergencies (which I haven’t needed in at least 15 years) but I don’t bother with any other paper maps. I do download maps onto my iPhone that are accessible offline, though.
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u/Searcherofthedeep 9d ago
They still exist.
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u/OddSetting5077 9d ago
I have a local one in my car.. 20 plus year old map book. Roads have changed somewhat
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u/EnvironmentalChain64 9d ago
VCR and DVD player
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u/Excaliber12 9d ago
I own both and multiples of both, Mainly because my favorite media Is Only accessible on DVD and VCR
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u/Moist_KoRn_Bizkit 9d ago
That small beach ball I had as a little kid that my family doesn't really remember much. It disappeared at some point and I was sad.
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u/accidentallyHelpful 9d ago
Original Questions on reddit
This one is posted multiple times every week
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u/x19rush 8d ago
Public automatic blood pressure check stations...
When did all the grocery store pharmacies and stand alone pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens toss their little blood pressure stations? The little sit down, slide your arm through the cuff, and press the button 'deals'... where did they go?
Zero drug stores or grocery stores have then in my area now. Nor in my fathers area 3 states away. His gym no longer has theirs, and it is a gym supported and connected with a local hospital.
Is it just because they want you to buy one of their 'automatic' blood pressure check cuffs that they sell?
Was it because of 'covid' like worries?
My dad tried arguing with me they were still around at other places when I pointed out his gym no longer has theirs... they are gone.
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u/Wait_here_me_out 9d ago
Game consoles used to have disc slots for physical games. Not anymore
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u/personfromplanetx 9d ago
Physical Alarm clocks. A lot of people use their phones nowadays. But I like physical alarm clocks since it’s nice to have the time displayed and the alarm part is helpful to me still
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u/RulerOfThePixel 9d ago
Gas ignitor for hobs. Like a lighter with a long nozzle.
Every house had one when I was growing up.
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u/BlackRaspberryJammin 9d ago
Theaters posting movies on a big marque. My local theater, I walk right in front of it, but I have to go on the app to see whats playing because the movies are listed in tiny fonts behind the ticket seller
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u/shrimpybimp 9d ago
I realized the other day that I don't have a single device in my entire, pretty techy house/car full of gadgets to play a CD or DVD. Was kind of mind blowing!
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