[mrweasel]

I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life, at least not without large downsides. There's some embedded stuff, like lane assist or adaptive cruise control in my car, that I like, but the package as a whole... not really much of an improvement.

It's not really bad as such that the tech industry want to attempt to make a smart home, or add software to a product, but it's increasingly being done without consideration for the users.

People hate the tech industry, and that includes those who work in it, because it's pretty clear that the industry really doesn't give a shit about it's users, because the users are rarely the customers anymore.

[ubermonkey]

Yeah, this.

In terms of consumer benefit in tech we've been at stasis for a long time. My computing experience isn't that much different now than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Sure, my computer and connectivity are far faster now, and thanks to Apple Silicon I can go whole days at conferences without plugging my laptop in, but those are incremental improvements not sea changes. We did fine with 4-hour laptops in 1999.

Also a number of "improvements" just aren't, like smart home devices and IoT crap. Virtually none of those things have made good on the marketers' promises, and 100% of them require some tech family member to end up sysadmining the TV or the thermostat or the light switch, and having to do that kind of crap for things that used to Just Work in the most basic sense is insane.

There's been a lot of heavy lifting in the smart speaker space, and it IS true that my 86 year old mother enjoys being able to ask Siri to play any song she wants, but that kind of thing seems picayune compared to what middle-aged nerds thought the second quarter of the 21st century would bring us.

The only area that comes immediately to mind for ME that includes staggering advances is medical care. I had a hip replacement a few years ago that was an OUTPATIENT procedure. A dear friend of mine ignored symptoms and therefore only "caught" his colon cancer well into stage 4 -- and yet still lived 6 years with pretty high quality of life. Time was, a stage 4 diagnosis meant "uh, maybe don't renew your cable this month." Another pal has progressive MS; 15 years ago, there were no therapies AT ALL for it. Now there is one, and it's making a difference for him and his family.

Nothing on that scale has shown up from "the tech industry" in a long time.

[dsego]

It's one of those things were I feel like a frog in boiling water. Drivers need smart assists in cars because I see everybody is checking messages and scrolling on their devices while driving. The tech is solving things but also creating a need for more tech to solve new problems. A lot of things also remain unsolved from the earlier stages of tech. Eg. what happens to our digital lives when we die, can we have legal access so it doesn't rely solely on personal responsibility to share account keys and passwords. How is our digital life secured and backed up without having to come up with home grown solutions and be a sys admin or pay for cloud storage. Why can't we decide on standard protocols for messaging, we had SMS, now we have different messaging apps, people who aren't tech savvy lose years of correspondence when switching devices because they failed to import or transfer data. We still haven't solved data archiving to free us from bit rot and degradation, things like project silica are only in the research phases. All the while, we generate more and more data and make our lives completely dependent on digital services and devices. More and more bank branches are cashless now. We had a massive power grid outage a few years ago and at the convenience store we couldn't buy anything, there was no way to issue a paper receipt or anything like that, the store employees were clueless. I still remember a time when you could buy on tab/credit, they would just write it up, or at least take cache and issue handwritten receipts. And now we're piling AI on top of everything, but operating systems are still crap, software is mostly crap and we have to update our devices every few years because they become slow or stop working. And it feels like younger generations don't mind because it's the new normal, they grew up with smart devices.

[pixl97]

>Drivers need smart assists in cars because

Na, drivers have always sucked. When I was growing up the amount of people that drove drunk was just insane. I have no idea how they survived, I guess a lot of them did not.

[throwawaytea]

I worked in car sales. Most of my coworkers drove drunk once a week or more. So basically I've seen 10+ people drive drunk 100+ times, and no doubt they do it more outside my view. No one ever had an accident.

[pixl97]

Right, the drunk drivers never had an accident, until that night they kill some other family of 4.

[throwawaytea]

For sure drunk driving increases your odds of an accident. But people make it sound 3-4 beers and you're bound to have an accident. We should be more honest about it.

[dTal]

What a weird straw pile to die one. No one is saying "four beers and you're guaranteed an accident". They're saying "drive drunk and you are a piece of shit, don't do it ever ever ever". There's no room for nuance here because the targets of this advice have lethally impaired judgement. Wiggle room will be exploited by people too drunk to know better, which equals preventable death.

[lokar]

Most people would not describe the observable behavior of someone just over the legal limit as drunk.

[nradov]

My optometrist told me that when he started clinical practice years ago he was shocked to discover how many people were driving around with severe visual impairments. The usual DMV eye exam is way too easy.

[throwawaytea]

I sold cars for a living so I pay attention to randoms in cars more than most probably. The amount of people (mostly women) sitting WAYYY too low in their car is shocking. I don't know how they can even see most of what's near in front of them.

The way too close to the steering wheel also shocks me, but I guess with that one theyre going to just hurt themselves.

When id sell a car, or even on test drives, I'd try to help them adjust the seat to a sane position but most people that do it wrong seem to be pretty set in their ways and don't want to change it even with some friendly advice and showing them the seat goes way up. It's almost like they don't like looking bigger in their car or something.

[Legend2440]

>I can't actually think of a single piece of tech made in the past ten years that has improved my life

This is going to be controversial, but I feel that ChatGPT has improved my life.

Also e-bikes, 3D printers, and wireless earbuds really took off in the last ten years. Some of these were invented more than 10 years ago but saw significant improvements that brought them into the mainstream.

[cwillu]

Being able to use ChatGPT is useful, but it is significantly offset by how many business interactions are now mediated solely by chatgpt, and I'm not sure on balance my life has been improved.

[pjmlp]

The fight to actually talk to a human on help desk.

[_DeadFred_]

e-bikes are a terror. Motorized vehicles operating in places where motorized vehicles aren't allowed (so like all modern tech, the benefit is the abuse/loophole they allow a small subset to benefit from). People treating them like toys and riding horribly resulting in lots of accidents. Nah, they aren't a plus.

[watwut]

They are huge health plus for older people. It gives them the exercise they need without being mind numbingly boring.

[SubmarineClub]

Sitting on their ass while a battery wizzes them around isn’t ‘healthy’ lol.

It’s incredibly how many deluded people are on this site.

[watwut]

They are actually pedaling and moving, but they need less strength and stamina to get further. They dont end up stuck downhill unable to climb up. This latter risk is something that really forces old people to put out of normal bikes. For older person, the e-bike is roughly the exercise they need. And it gets you to places, it does not limit them to small area.

The old person alternative to e-bike is not normal bike, it is nothing, because their bodies are just like that - weak and old.

[harimau777]

I think the health benefits would be the ability to get out and be involved with the world. When I was living in Chinatown I was amazed by how much healthier the elderly people were simply from going to the park each day and hanging out with their friends or dancing (Chinese people, at least in the US, seem to LOVE ballroom dancing!). The problem is that not everyone can live in a strong community where they can walk to a local park.

[throwawaytea]

Those are real tech IMO. Consumer media type software isn't 'tech', at least not regular useful software sense. That would be like calling addictive drugs and slot machines an innovation or technology.

[netsharc]

> lane assist or adaptive cruise control in my car

The hilarious thing is that the EU decided that the assisting must be mandatory, and so now every time you turn on your 2024 or newer car, lane assist and "you're speeding!" warnings are turned on.

At least there's still a way to turn them off/getting in the car means sit down, seat belt, mirrors, turn on the engine, go to settings and switch off the nanny modes...

[m463]

this is leaking down to identity matching

https://electrek.co/2026/07/06/tesla-cabin-camera-fsd-identi...

and maybe:

https://www.notateslaapp.com/software-updates/upcoming-featu...

[el_memorioso]

Wow. This seems like a prelude to licensing the car for each driver (on a monthly basis) rather than buying it outright.

[EvanAnderson]

Isn't that just a lease?

[harimau777]

I could see that being enshittified soon. From what I've seen the deal is often "you lease the car instead of owning it, but you get a much nicer car than you could otherwise afford". I could see it switching to "You get a regular car but you still don't own it."

[pibaker]

The voluntary adoption of modern tech products says otherwise. People aren't forced to wear Apple Watches, order food through doordash, look up things on ChatGPT, ride Waymos etc. And yet everything I listed above is very popular.

Population wide revealed preferences speak volumes despite what loud critics who appointed themselves as the people's ambassadors may say.

[wolvesechoes]

People commonly voluntarily destroy their health and screw their lifes. So not very thought out argument.

[eggn00dles]

adopting something and having it improve your life are two dramatically different things

[harimau777]

I think it is important to keep in mind that people's "revealed preferences" are dependent on the society they live in. E.g. are people talking to ChatGPT about their deepest fears because they want to or because society has under invested in counselors like pastors, school guidance counselors, licensed therapist, etc.

[dsego]

People aren't forced to smoke, gamble, or drink alcohol.

[jordanb]

This is it.

The silicon valley tech industry went from being a consumer products industry to being an advertising industry. Consumer products companies see the person buying their stuff as the customer. Advertising companies see them as the product.

Plus the monopolies..

[pjmlp]

I certainly hate that even when working on ecommerce projects, I have indirectly contributed for people to lose their jobs, as chains close their physical stores.

[thefz]

All you said plus they think they are above the law.