&gt;Most things worked far, far better 10 years ago than today. Apparently this is progress.<p>Not everything; cars today are a big improvement over cars 10 years ago, and especially cars 20 years ago.  Just in the last 10 years, cars have made huge improvements in fuel economy alone.  Cars have gotten <i>really good</i> for the most part.  Some article I recently read on an auto blog, about the &quot;10 worst&quot; cars, even complained that modern cars are so great now that their picks were really just about which ones were the worst values relative to their competition, and that, unlike in past ages, they couldn&#x27;t point to any true stinkers.<p>Also, I think mobile phone software is generally better now than 10 years ago.  10 years ago the iPhone was brand new, and most people still used crappy feature phones running things like BREW.  They just didn&#x27;t give you the capabilities that modern phones do.  Some people complain that newer phones have poorer call quality than old flip-phones, but personally talking on the phone is one of the least-used features.  I spend a lot more time using it for texting, photos, voice mail, and various apps (taking notes, calculator, playing games, Tinder, etc.).<p>However, in the software world, I will readily agree that most PC-based software was far, far better 10 years ago than today.  PC-based software in the last 5 years has really, really gone down the toilet.  Windows 8&#x2F;10 are a prime example here, but even Linux distros really aren&#x27;t doing that great either.  The web is a horror show, with every site full of dozens of JavaScript scripts running, mainly for spying&#x2F;tracking purposes.  I don&#x27;t even agree that the web is prettier; too many sites are mobile-centric, and look stupid on a regular PC screen.