Technology That Was So Great in the Past, But Become Redundant in Today's World

Try to imagine it; with just a simple machine, you can feed in a piece of paper here, and have a copy of it pop out over there! Magic! You can imagine it, of course - you’re probably within arm’s reach of a mobile device capable sending high-definition videos to rural China in a heartbeat if you so desired. Paper is hardly impressive. But for people just a few decades ago, the idea of transmitting a copy of a form through thin air had them clapping their hands over their ears to keep their brains from exploding out of them. It was a revolutionary invention, and it absolutely changed the world. Today, of course, we have little use for fax machines. Why send someone a paper copy to spill their pomegranate juice on when you could email them a juice-proof PDF file?

You can still occasionally find these in electronic stores, probably not too far from the bargain bin. Portable DVD players were exactly like little laptops, except that their only possible function was to play a DVD. For one thing, DVDs are quickly going the way of Windows 7, racial segregation and common sense; soon, they’ll be resting next to the Beta machine in humanity’s digital graveyard while Blu Ray discs enjoy being mankind’s last form of physical media. For another thing, every single item you own that plugs into the wall is capable of playing movies. Laptop? Check. Tablet? Check. Phone? Check? Electric toothbrush? If you scrub your bottom left molars exactly right, there’s no telling what hidden features you might unlock. Carrying around a designated DVD device is like carrying around a physical address book with your iPhone - it’s completely redundant.

Some things are simply time-sensitive. You don’t want your ten-year-old spending twelve hours shooting virtual zombies, you shouldn’t leave your pizza in the oven for four hours if you want to live in an unscorched house, and you need to wait the appropriate amount of time before taking your next dose of antibiotics to treat that heinous infected sore on your left butt cheek. You used to be able to walk into the housewares section of any department store and find a myriad of digital timers for your shopping pleasure. Where did all those timers go? Much like calculators, human interaction and physical intimacy, they’ve all been replaced by one deadly device - your smart phone.

Edward Dennis is a tech and marketing blogger. He's part of Web24's team Australia's dedicated and VPS hosting provider.