Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don&#x27;t watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage.<p>Social media. I feel like if it weren&#x27;t for these algorithms that prioritize &quot;engagement&quot; over facts and polite content, my country would be a bit less polarized. I think that social media will turn out to be like cigarettes and someday we will discover that it has an extremely bad outcome; at least how it&#x27;s implemented today. I have come to enjoy HN a bit more lately, as I just don&#x27;t engage with the trolls or the horrible people that have opinions I disagree with vehemently. The people <i>I</i> think are horrible, at least, because it&#x27;s a personal opinion, and other&#x27;s might view me as a horrible person. I have also learned that it&#x27;s best not to judge someone by one or two views overall, here, and that helps. I wish more social media could be like HN and allow a diverse set of opinions, but ban the name-calling and such that really take things into a bad place.<p>Most products today are less durable and are generally worse than &quot;yesterday&quot;, in my opinion. Perhaps it&#x27;s the old man in me coming out, with a rosy view of yesteryear, but I think that the quality of things are just lower, in general. I do think that things &quot;look nicer&quot; and are more consistent, but at a lower level of quality. 20 years ago, I had only 5 or so choices for any given product, maybe a curtain rod for example (because I just bought some). Today I can go down to several stores and pick from hundreds of curtain rod designs that look really nice, but half of them break after a few years or less. I still have some shitty looking but sturdy curtain rods from 20 years ago, no joke. Electronics are worse in some ways, but faster and more complex, so maybe that complexity is the source of the decrease in perceived quality. I can say that computers are way faster now, and it&#x27;s easier to do many things, but I have less freedom than I had with older computers for sure.<p>This is just about the end of my old man rant. Thanks for listening.<p>&quot;The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt...&quot;