Things that quietly disappeared in the last 20 years

[Xtreme]

I still use my AOL emails that I set up in 2000.

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I still use my original hotmail email (00/01) as my main email.

 

[Tadpole]

It's a scary thing still being able to remember your childhood home's phone number but now I lose trains of thoughts or words in the middle of a sentence.

I haven't quite lost all my marbles yet, but there's definitely a small hole in the bag somewhere.

 

[Cruyff14]

I still use my original hotmail email (00/01) as my main email.

Me too!

 

[cats_09]

I can remember my original ICQ email handle - that's long been closed down

I'm still using my Yahoo email from 2005 as a generic email and then got a more professional sounding Gmail address I also use

 

[Teagueeee15]

The little local delis or milk bars have mostly all disappeared and have been replaced by petrol station mini marts and 7-Elevens.




Yeah I miss the old CD stores, that was one of the few places I wanted to go to in shopping centres.

Most of them would have bargain bins which you could rifle through and pick up some genuine bargains amongst the shit CDs.




Our video store had a 7 weekly videos for 7 dollars, you would usually get a few shit ones but at a dollar a pop it didn't matter.

If you forked out the big bucks for an overnight video and it was a dud that was more of a problem so you had to be more picky.

In Melbourne at least, even 7-Elevens seem to be disappearing, with the convenience only stores becoming Ezymarts and the petrol stations becoming Reddys.

 

[Pistol Night]

Not sure about the printer at home one. My kids are always bugging me to print something off for them.

Yeah i need an extra ream of A4 a month to keep up with my kids printing "needs"

 

[Pistol Night]

Comedy

 

[cats_09]

Not sure about the printer at home one. My kids are always bugging me to print something off for them.

I got rid of my home printer at one stage and really missed the convenience of when I needed to print the odd random thing - now got a wireless laser printer and good for when needed

 

[Upstart Swan]

There used to be pay phones everywhere, and some even worked. Then there were pay phones but none worked. And now there are no pay phones.

Still on phones, the White Pages and the Yellow Pages. It seems bizarre now to think that once upon a time almost everyone's private phone number was in a book kept in every household.

I don't buy newspapers anymore, but I imagine that the weekly TV guide liftout has now disappeared.

And at the newsagents there seemed to be magazines on every available subject. Just the sports section took up an entire wall. Now my local newsagent sells literally a handful of newspapers and a small range of magazines to supplement the main business of selling lottery tickets .

 

[Gough]

As a kid we got The West Australian (Saturday) and The Sunday Times delivered to our house. One year we got back from an overseas holiday on Sunday night. It was really annoying not knowing what was on TV for almost a week.

I was backpacking in Africa when Senna died and only found out when I got back to England and was watching a GP and asked where he was.

 

[Upstart Swan]

I was backpacking in Africa when Senna died and only found out when I got back to England and was watching a GP and asked where he was.

I was living in Europe when South Melbourne announced their move to Sydney. Found out about it through a letter from my mum a couple of months later.

That reminds me, remember the special lightweight airmail paper we all used, to save on postage costs?

 

[Gough]

I was living in Europe when South Melbourne announced their move to Sydney. Found out about it through a letter from my mum a couple of months later.

That reminds me, remember the special lightweight airmail paper we all used, to save on postage costs?

Blue aerograms. When my granny died I found that she'd kept all of the ones that I'd written to her when I'd been traveling.

 

[Frank Bunn]

There used to be pay phones everywhere, and some even worked. Then there were pay phones but none worked. And now there are no pay phones.

Payphones used to always smell like piss because people wandering round after the pub used them as public toilets.

In central London, phone booths always had a bunch of cards for people offering kinky sex for a price.

 

[Plugger35]

I bought phone cards when I was overseas to call home from phone boxes in the UK and the US, it was only about 25 years ago.

Comedy

Comedy died when Hoges decided to go to Hollywood when Crocodile Dundee made it big, The Paul Hogan Show was the best.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

I don't buy newspapers anymore, but I imagine that the weekly TV guide liftout has now disappeared.

I still get the paper delivered on the weekends, and can report the Sunday Herald has a TV guide liftout.

 

[the_interloper]

When I've looked it up on YouTube before it's looked like utter shit

I think you had to be there, I missed this when it was on and have a similar view

 

[Chicago1]

Blue aerograms. When my granny died I found that she'd kept all of the ones that I'd written to her when I'd been traveling.

Yes. My grandmother saved all mine to her after I moved here. I kept one that she had sent to me. Found it when I was moving into my retirement village three years ago. I never could open them up correctly.

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[Chicago1]

I miss texting on my old Nokia phone. It taught me patience.

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[MC Extra Dollop]

It's a scary thing still being able to remember your childhood home's phone number but now I lose trains of thoughts or words in the middle of a sentence.

I remember doing the drive through COVID test back when they were all the rage and forgetting my own mobile number. But I could reel off 10 or so friends and extended family members' landlines from 30 years ago, no problem. Same deal with car number plates (and just cars in general I suppose): I used to know all my friends' parents, aunts/uncles, friends of my parents etc... now I barely remember my own and there's no way that I'd spot a car driving the opposite way to me down the highway and think "That's Bill!"

On the printers mention from the OP and the subsequent replies, I reckon the home printers have had a post COVID, hybrid work resurgence. Mine isn't anything super fancy, but I definitely need it.

I think now that milk bars are not as much of a thing as they were when I was growing up, icy poles aren't a big thing anymore. My kids would have had the occasional Drumstick (from the freezer at their nan's), but never a Bubble O Bill, Paddle Pop, Choc Wedge etc.

 

[jwikked]

fax machines - can't remember the last one i saw

I bought a Brother printer, and it has a fax machine included. Great printer, worth every cent. Shame I'll never send or receive a fax, though.

 

[magpie_marty]

Honey Smacks used to be a great Cereal and then one day gonski.

 

[emuboy]

This thread made me think of an unremarkable at the time but looking back very nostalgic Saturday afternoon/evening I spent with my then girlfriend in early 2001. We went to Sanity to buy a CD for her younger sister's birthday, had dinner at Sizzler and then rented a video from the local 'Video Ezy' store.

In some ways this day just seems like yesterday, but in other ways it seems so far removed from today it seems like jerky, black and white/sepia tone silent footage from the early 1900s.

It also got me thinking - how often do you see a 'traditional' Chinese restaurant that were popular in the past? They seem to have gone out of fashion in recent decades. I was thinking, when did these two companies first start trading in Australia, because I can't for the life of me remember it - JB Hi-Fi and Subway?

 

[Billy ray]

Subway was about 1988/89

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

This thread made me think of an unremarkable at the time but looking back very nostalgic Saturday afternoon/evening I spent with my then girlfriend in early 2001. We went to Sanity to buy a CD for her younger sister's birthday, had dinner at Sizzler and then rented a video from the local 'Video Ezy' store.

In some ways this day just seems like yesterday, but in other ways it seems so far removed from today it seems like jerky, black and white/sepia tone silent footage from the early 1900s.

It also got me thinking - how often do you see a 'traditional' Chinese restaurant that were popular in the past? They seem to have gone out of fashion in recent decades. I was thinking, when did these two companies first start trading in Australia, because I can't for the life of me remember it - JB Hi-Fi and Subway?

South Yarra Subway used to put small ads in our school student newsletter around the late 90s, but I thought it was just a local sandwich shop, could have been "Johnny's Sandwiches" for all I knew. Then I watched Happy Gilmore for the first time and was like "WTF??!"

IIRC, they started popping up everywhere from around the early 2000s.

 

[Plugger35]

This thread made me think of an unremarkable at the time but looking back very nostalgic Saturday afternoon/evening I spent with my then girlfriend in early 2001. We went to Sanity to buy a CD for her younger sister's birthday, had dinner at Sizzler and then rented a video from the local 'Video Ezy' store.

In some ways this day just seems like yesterday, but in other ways it seems so far removed from today it seems like jerky, black and white/sepia tone silent footage from the early 1900s.

It also got me thinking - how often do you see a 'traditional' Chinese restaurant that were popular in the past? They seem to have gone out of fashion in recent decades. I was thinking, when did these two companies first start trading in Australia, because I can't for the life of me remember it - JB Hi-Fi and Subway?

I'm surprised Subway is still a going concern.

They used to be quite popular in the 90s when they started up here but on the few occasions I go there now they are empty or just have a few people there at most.

The Subways here now are like the Subways I went to in the UK, the Poms never went there, they wanted chips and not salads.