So often, the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park ring true, where engineers and product managers are too preoccupied “with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Someone asked “What was the biggest downgrade in recent memory that was pitched like it was an upgrade?” and people shared the worst examples. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote your favorites, and share your thoughts in the comments. If you want to see more terrible changes and updates, check out our article on bad redesigns.
Image credits: Popular-Recover8880
#1
Getting rid of headphone jacks on phones. Getting rid of external SD cards on phones. Getting rid of replaceable batteries on phones. Smartphones used to be a lot better in so many ways.
Image source: Outrageous_Tea_4597, Lisa Fotios / pexels (not the actual photo)
#2
“Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time,”
F**K YOU AMAZON.
Image source: WhatevahIsClevah, Erik Mclean / pexels (not the actual photo)
#3
The change of some products, especially software, from a “you buy it, you own it” to subscription based models, where you lose access once the subscription ends.
Image source: TheBassMeister, Cliff Booth / pexels (not the actual photo)
#4
All these smart appliances. I don’t see the use in these washers and refrigerators with touch screens and internet connectivity. They have so many points of failure. Just give me a bare bones fridge that will last longer than me.
Image source: Novapunk8675309, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#5
Touch buttons replacing physical buttons. Especially in cars.
Image source: snorens, Pixabay / pexels (not the actual photo)
#6
Tipping culture in US post-COVID. I can’t even buy a coffee without being requested to tip. F**k off.
Image source: Pulp_Ficti0n, Andrea Piacquadio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#7
The use of QR codes at some restaurants instead of a physical menu.
Image source: Moon_Jewel90, iMin Technology / pexels (not the actual photo)
#8
Customer service and communication with companies and general. Everything is now an app, a faq or a robot. I’ve seen commercials presenting this as a good thing claiming it’s so easy to get an answer to your questions where in reality if you don’t have a standard question you’re screwed as no one any longer lists their phone number. Most large companies are impossible to contact.
Image source: Funkytownn, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#9
The removal of disc drives in laptops. Sure, the laptop is thinner and lighter now, but I can’t use any of my CDs or DVDs anymore.
Image source: Tranquilcobra, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#10
Streaming.
You buy a movie. Bu you don’t own it. They can take it away from you at any time, but they charge you the same. Total rip off and should be illegal.
Image source: StationFar6396, Nataliya Vaitkevich / pexels (not the actual photo)
#11
My pay rise that is well below inflation.
Image source: booboohaha, Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels (not the actual photo)
#12
Windows… F*****g… 11. It’s not an upgrade, it’s a side grade at best.
Image source: iwantdatpuss, Esmihel Muhammad / pexels (not the actual photo)
#13
Hewlett Packard added “anti-hacking safety features” to all their ink cartridges, to guard against the risk of people having their computers hacked by counterfeit ink cartridges (WTF?).
Of course, an unfortunate side effect of that new safety measure is that you can’t use any ink cartridge from any supplier other than HP in your printer. But that’s a sacrifice they had to make in the name of cyber security.
Like, seriously, I was getting YouTube ads for months in which HP were trying to sell this “feature” as a positive. I don’t know how people can sleep at night selling such an outright and obvious lie.
Image source: iamplasma, George Milton / pexels (not the actual photo)
#14
Removing the dislike button on Youtube
Image source: Puzzleheaded-Ear202, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#15
The privatization of public infrastructure in most countries.
Which is almost always pitched as “You will get a better service, and we will get more funding for schools and so on”.
What actully happens? Some business owner takes over and runs the service into the ground, only to get bailed out by the government.
Image source: Orcasubmarine, anna-m. w. / pexels (not the actual photo)
#16
Food delivery. Pre pandemic (and pre Just Eat/Uber Eats) restaurants and takeaways would routinely offer totally free delivery over a certain amount, unless you were a fair distance away, and major pizza chains especially never charged for delivery if you were in their catchment areas. Now you need to pay increasingly large delivery fees no matter the distance. My local Pizza Hut started charging £3 – £4 for delivery, stating on their website; “in order to enhance your experience, we are excited to announce deliveries will now cost blah blah blah” or some such marketing bollocks. In addition the roads and pavements are now plagued by s******l bike coureers who have no idea how roads work.
Image source: Megamoss, Mike Jones / pexels (not the actual photo)
#17
Streaming platforms going subscription + ads, lets just combine the old with the new model and do em both worse! hooray
Image source: AliasAlien, Ketut Subiyanto / pexels (not the actual photo)
#18
Brexit
Image source: SloeHazel, Lina Kivaka / pexels (not the actual photo)
#19
Privatization of Rail, healthcare etc
Image source: future_lard, Paul IJsendoorn / pexels (not the actual photo)
#20
Electric cars. They’re being marketed as a solution to the issue we face with fuel and they really aren’t. They simply open up a whole new bag of problems.
Image source: wellyboot97, Mike Bird / pexels (not the actual photo)
#21
Netflix ditching the star rating for a simple thumb up thumb down system. I stumbled across so many awesome things to watch purely because user rating was so high
Image source: TheCowardlyLion_, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#22
Has anyone mentioned wireless headphones yet? Bring back the plug-in ones, no batteries, and saved your phone when you dropped it.
Image source: AnyRepresentative432, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#23
I was promoted to a higher management position that happened to be in the night shift.
They DECREASED my salary, because the night bonus “would compensate the difference”…
Image source: Dicksperado, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#24
Open office plans.
Image source: RonocNYC, Marc Mueller / pexels (not the actual photo)
#25
People remember the headphone jack removal, but I’m also pissed about laptop manufacturers removing so many ports and telling us to use port hubs. I’d rather carry a laptop that’s thicker than carry a separate hub just to connect a mouse and a pendrive.
Also pissed off at how anti-repair laptops have become. The keyboards these days have to be repaired by opening up the whole a*s mobo. Before you could pop it out and swap.
Image source: Similar_Green_5838, Anna Shvets / pexels (not the actual photo)
#26
Getting notifications about suggested content. Facebook likes to send me notifications now like “Hey that guy who you had one class with in high school and never spoke to just posted something!” Reddit likes to notify me when there’s posts on subreddits I don’t follow. I wish notifications were just for things I actually give a s**t about like someone messaging me or replying to a comment I made.
Image source: reticulatedspline, Eren Li / pexels (not the actual photo)
#27
iphones getting rid of touch ID. It’s faster than face id, it’s easier to wave a stolen phone/police-snatched phone at your face than it is to drag your hand into position and other brands have shown there was no practical need for it.
Image source: je97, Karolina Grabowska / pexels (not the actual photo)
#28
Pretty much every sale these days. They jack the prices up and then discount to the same price they were before. It’s pretty common here in Australia.
Image source: bazang_, Pixabay / pexels (not the actual photo)
#29
Google 5 years ago vs now.
Seems like its getting worse every day.
Image source: ResidentSheeper, cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)
#30
Definitely streaming services. We were all fooled by Netflix’s initial success. It had nearly everything at a low price and was super convenient, so convenient in fact that rental shops pretty much went out of business in a few years. But aside from those few years it has ultimately become a huge L for consumers. Other companies wised up, everyone and their mother were starting a streaming service, tons of movies stopped being available and to have decent availability you have to spend 50 bucks per month on streaming alone, packages became more expensive overall, tons of properties just fell in a dead zone where they’re not available anywhere through legitimate means, ads started appearing in paid plans, and now it’s pretty much just cable TV again.
In retrospect rental stores were not that inconvenient. They were everywhere and they had almost anything. They rarely didn’t have a title at all, and at least for me the cost is more or less the same across the long term. Yeah if you were watching stuff constantly through rentals it would be more expensive, but it’s been years since Netflix had more than one thing per month I bother watching.
Image source: PckMan, Anastasia Shuraeva / pexels (not the actual photo)
#31
Dish detergent/washing up liquid. For the past few years, I was sure all the “New and Improved’ and “Now with x More” was false. Newer detergent doesn’t seem to go half as far, or cut through grease as well. I used to buy a bottle maybe once every 5-6 months; now, I’m buying a bottle every 2-3 months — and I’m doing the same amount of washing up. Fast forward to two weeks ago when I found a bottle of Tesco generic washing up liquid in an under stair cupboard from 7-8 years ago, unopened and still perfectly usable. I popped that boy open and did a 1-to-1 comparison with the same liquid I bought last week. I could immediately see a difference. The liquid in the old version was thicker, and obviously much more concentrated. The old stuff took a single pass to clean greasy pans. The same pans took at least three passes with the new stuff, and still didn’t come away with that squeaky clean feel. Insult to injury, the new bottle had 60ml less, and I’m going to guess it cost more. Tdrl: Newer dish detergent is junk, and I have the old stuff to prove it.
Image source: fulthrottlejazzhands, Karolina Grabowska / pexels (not the actual photo)
#32
Working and finding work with a college degree.
Image source: Practicalsparticle, Gül Işık / pexels (not the actual photo)
#33
I work for 7-11. We used to sell burritos at 2 for 2.30. One day we had a “sale” at 2 for $3! When that sale ended the burritos were now 2 for 3.40. They raised the price twice but treated one like a sale.
Image source: Viruszero, Jimmy Liao / pexels (not the actual photo)
#34
Adverts on Amazon Prime. I’m sure they are trying to make them so annoying that you pay extra to go ad free…
Image source: Confuscious-He-Say, Ron Lach / pexels (not the actual photo)
#35
I hate that all 3 major consoles now require you to pay for a subscription to play online
Literally all the other features of ps+ are good enough for people to buy it why would you force people to buy it for online that used to be free
Image source: dishonoredfan69420, JÉSHOOTS / pexels (not the actual photo)
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