6 ms·

I used to be excited about new tech, but I rarely am anymore

74 points by wrxd 1mo ago

niek_pas 1mo ago
> Of course nowadays days I see the downsides of these devices and we're getting to a point where the cons outweigh the pros, but back when I bought the first smart phone (I guess in 2012 or so, I was relatively late to the party) it felt like a leap into the future compared to what I had before. I know a lot of people have a troubled relationship to their phone, but this is really surprising to me. Would I want to go back to a world where I can't conveniently contact people, navigate the world, look up anything I want to know in an second, and set timers by yelling at the air rather than getting sticky foccacia dough in the cracks of my egg timer? Not even a little bit. The last time I personally felt the excitement the author describes was probably with the announcement of Apple Vision Pro, but unfortunately that product went nowhere.
- throwatdem12311 1mo ago
  I bought a flip phone that blocks web browsers and social media apps. All other apps work though. Best of both worlds.
  - weakfish 1mo ago
    Would love to know what phone :)
- BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
  > set timers by yelling at the air rather than getting sticky foccacia dough in the cracks of my egg timer? I know it's mainly in jest, but this always strikes me as an odd example of 'high tech'. It feels like a 'first you create the universe' solution to using an egg timer with doughy fingers. Egg timers are simple devices that clean easy and can handle dough transfer. They are (or perhaps only 'were ') built as fit for purpose. Yes, it's just an extra thing the 'high tech' can do, but damn it's an awful example of the (reached) potential of high tech. A better example could be: I can ask the air to buy me a big mac and have it paid for and delivered to my house within 30 minutes all while I'm changing a nappy and putting the baby to bed. There's a whole stack of systems needing to communicate to make that thing happen.
  - brazukadev 1mo ago
    I was expecting a much better example. Not many people are looking to micro-optimize their time. An app to do that (and maybe choose something cheaper and better than big mac) already exist. Whatever improvement is marginal. Your example reminds me of the famous chatbots buying plane tickets. There is no demand of people looking for a chatbot to buy plane tickets.
davidw 1mo ago
High quality eBikes are pretty amazing: I have nearly 4000 miles on one of ours, and nearly all of those are replacing car trips around town, including most of our grocery shopping. While not revolutionary - they're kind of an incremental improvement - I'm pretty impressed by all the things a cheap Chromebook can do.
- redthorn 1mo ago
  We went from hipsters with tattoos on fixies to this guy
- dosisking 1mo ago
  eBikes may be pretty amazing in isolation, but as a pedestrian, I absolutely hate people who ride eBikes.
  - swiftcoder 1mo ago
    Do you hate e-bikes, or do you hate city planning that treats e-bikes as second-class citizens, and forces them into direct competition with cars and pedestrians?
    - dosisking 1mo ago
      [flagged]
      - loco5niner 1mo ago
        I know 2 middle-aged to older ladies who both had bad accidents after their husbands bought or rented an e-bike for them that they did not have the skillset to handle. Months of recovery, thankfully nothing life-threatening. > To those people I wish a slow and painful death. I'm on generally the same page, but this is a bit much.
      - tomhow 29d ago
        Please don't post ragebait or wish anyone death on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. We have to ban accounts that do this repeatedly. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
astura 1mo ago
There's a term for that, it's called "getting old" and older people have been saying this kinda stuff for generations.
- actionfromafar 1mo ago
  The kids don't seem very excited anymore either from what I can tell.
  - Sarky 1mo ago
    Have to agree with you. They are bored most of the time and waiting for something to happen to them.
  - XorNot 1mo ago
    You're old, you have no idea what the kids are into. How accurate did the endless news reports about your generation feel when you were young?
- stvltvs 1mo ago
  I'm getting old, but it seems like we're all more ambivalent about new tech. Maybe I'm projecting, but we don't expect tech to be the solution to human problems as much as we used to. The boundless optimism about the World Wide Web has putrified into techno-pessimism for at least half of us.
pbohun 1mo ago
I feel the same way. I think the difference is that new tech used to be an improvement to your life. New tech is there simply to suck life (your attention) and money away from you. There are exceptions of course, But the general trend is worrying.
- BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
  New tech is so you can do your job more efficiently to get more X for less time for your employer, to satisfy the customer, to pay the share holder.
lenerdenator 1mo ago
I've been playing Project Zomboid with my friends. It's an isometric survival game set in 1993 in a fictional area around Louisville, Kentucky. It has VHS tapes, TV and radio broadcasts, ham radio, CDs, and landlines in it. So far in my playing experience, there's no real internet component. There's some sort of disease outbreak that turns people into zombies and society starts to collapse. Eventually things like the power grid and water/sewage infrastructure break down. Food rots. Gasoline runs out. It's basically guaranteed that you and your teammates will die in this game. Even after living through a pandemic and all of the shit that came with it, and despite the grim atmosphere of the game, I still miss the time period that this game symbolized. I know I was only a child during the 90s and the era had its real problems, but there were good things about it and the state of technology at the time that have gotten worse in the decades since. It was a time when media was a physical good and had meaning, when there wasn't a constant deluge of information, when my attention was less valuable than advertisers have made it today, and there was, at least for the majority of society, a shared informational reality. That's all gone and there are massively powerful interests working to make sure it stays gone.
deflator 1mo ago
I still get excited by the sheer power of current and upcoming tech It may be the same stuff we had 20 years ago, but the specs! What was a supercomputer before is now just a component in a datacenter, one of 72 per rack.
- bluGill 1mo ago
  What used to be a super computing center now fits in my pocket and runs on batteries. I haven't tried, but I'm reasonably sure my phone can emulate a Cray-1 at faster than the original.
  - tverbeure 1mo ago
    A Cray-1 had 180M flops. Your phone can emulate it as speeds many times faster.
- criddell 1mo ago
  I used to be like that. I would pore over feature matrices in Computer Shopper ads and pick out stuff I couldn't afford and wasn't going to buy. Then, about 7 years ago I realized that for the first time, I was more or less happy with the tech in my life. My computer was good, I liked my phone, my tablet, and my ereader. I had a good TV and stereo I used all the time. The appliances in my home are reliable and work well. The tools I use in my garage and yard are all fine. With Android Auto or Car Play (I've used both) even my car felt like it had crossed some threshold of being good enough that I didn't really have the itch for something better. I had been working full time for 30ish years and had accumulated a lot of stuff that makes my life better and there really isn't much more that I want and certainly nothing that I need. When Christmas rolls around and people want gift ideas for me, it's hard for me to think of things. My favorite thing in the world is to have a few days off and no plans or commitments and I can sort drill bits, change my guitar strings, watch a movie, or take a nap.
1attice 1mo ago
Tech is no longer exciting to me because I no longer feel a connection between tech improvement and world (or personal life) improvement. I used to read sci fi for the wonder, but now I read it with dread, for Chekov's Gun is a Torment Nexus, and if you introduce a Torment Nexus in Act 1 of a sci fi dystopia, it will be fired IRL by act 3. Deeper lurks a more chilling question: what, on a dying planet run by fascists, should I do with my time?
- cindyllm 1mo ago
  [dead]
Aurornis 1mo ago
I remember my grandparents making this exact same complaint: All of the new technologies during their younger years were amazing and improved the world. All of the technologies that came along in their later years were only complicating life after they had settled into comfortable routines. In my hobbies and other real world activities I cross paths with people in their 20s a lot. It’s really refreshing to see their excitement about new technologies and the future, contrasted with all the cynicism you get when you spend time in places with a lot of jaded adults who wish the world would stop changing. I think it’s natural to wish that technology would pause right at the point in your life and career where you’ve got it all figured out and lose your appetite for new things. It feels good to be on top of it all and feel like your knowledge, routines, and career skills are never going to go out of style. It feels uncomfortable when the world continues to change after you’ve settled into something familiar and routine.
- coldbrewed 1mo ago
  The difference is that their TV wasn't spying them but our TVs definitely are (aka ACR).
  - ThrowawayTestr 1mo ago
    My TV isn't connected to the Internet
    - M95D 29d ago
      How do you know? Seriously. Manufacturers could add modems to bypass the need for a wifi or cable connection, like they do in cars. I would expect by now that's a valid question to ask if I were to buy a new TV.
  - Aurornis 1mo ago
    They all had stories of friends, family members, and siblings who died at young ages from conditions that are treatable with modern technology. My grandfathers both benefited greatly from new technology of their times like hearing aids and various cardiac interventions. I don’t like a TV reporting analytics either, but if we’re looking at technological advancements as a whole that seems like small potatoes.
boxed 1mo ago
You do have to move your focus for sure. Gadgets used to be cool, but now you'd have to look at SpaceX or Stoke for space, and all the crazy ambitious fusion startups, or Quaise. Those are the ones I'm tracking at least..
handzhiev 1mo ago
I used to not be excited about the next consumer tech gadget or the next JS framework, but I am now pretty excited about transforming new tech now (AI, energy, space, etc).
fantasizr 1mo ago
I'm excited about self driving cars for aging boomer and drunk mobility. Most consumer tech seems to be pure agitation and slop. Can't seem to think that ways to engage media is getting better (paid streaming now with ads etc.) TVs take a forever to change channel, call quality seems to be worse than analog etc.
- ericmay 1mo ago
  Self-driving cars are really cool but they won't really solve our transit problems, they'll probably just make them worse and more expensive. We should be focusing on better development patterns (appropriate density - not skyscrapers and not suburbia), walking, biking, and hopping on a tram or something along those lines. Self-driving cars are an additive technology, and there is certainly a place for them, but they should be at best (like all cars) your 3rd or maybe even 4th best option for daily activities. Poor driving isn't limited to drunks or boomers.
  - fantasizr 1mo ago
    I'm a single issue voter to stop old people from driving when they shouldn't.
  - BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
    You are absolutely right, and the only negative is the utopian-esque description, therefore it'll never quite work as well as it should - but I think aiming for that will still get something better than what we've got. Your comment just made me think about the whole self-driving car thing as an extension of the car-centric thinking of the US (and how car-centricity is essentially anti-social, but that's beside the point), and now even the US is losing the car race to China, but it will maintain it's car-centric philosophy based on momentum rather than practicality. Could public transport be a national security priority? (mostly tongue in cheek, but just a smidge not).
    - ericmay 1mo ago
      Yea, it is an extension. It's additive. The safest car is the one that's parked. Car-centric culture has a lot of negative externalities. But the entire society is geared toward cars and propping them up. Cars themselves, auto jobs, departments of highways, tires, oil, gas, insurance, fast food, COSTCO, you name it. Most of those things can be replaced with something as simple as a sidewalk and better urban planning. If your goal is to prop up an industry, self-driving cars will do that for you. If your goal is to increase autonomy [1], wealth, entrepreneurship, and happiness and decrease death and health concerns, racism, obesity, and other things you need to move away from car-only building and design patterns. I also think busses are a problem because they just reinforce bad habits. For most municipalities a bus is just a worse version of your car which is why they're largely unsuccessful for the masses. Bike/walk/rail is, in my view, quite literally the only good path forward for future transportation development. I don't think the US is losing the car race to China though. What race? Why are we even in a race all of a sudden? I drive an EV and like them but aside from emissions I'm not sure one is really all that better than another (I find EVs more convenient though). [1] Been a bad person lately? Maybe the government and the vehicle facial recognition technology says sorry no driving for you. Now what? Secondarily for the elderly (as the single-issue voter OP has mentioned) walking/biking/rail allows for better outcomes and for folks to participate more in daily life. Driving becomes more and more hazardous as we age and folks wind up stuck at home.
zer00eyz 1mo ago
Cheap radios are in everything now. Think about all the fun wifi, zigbee, matter devices that you can play with (if you are inclined). Meshtastic and LoRa is a great toy to play with. The kitchen is full of interesting things, Sous Vide is great, the air fryer is... interesting and useful. Lots of people love their robot vacuum LED strip lighting has gone from nerdy to high design and has interesting features now. Those "VCR" and "iPhone" moments are rare. There is a lot of practical innovations that make my life better and I would be hard pressed to give up.
- doubled112 1mo ago
  The cheap radios boggle my mind a little bit. I can order a wireless transmitter for an electric guitar for cheaper than the cable next to it. How is this possible? $18 ESP32 with a camera attached and WiFi for an instant cheap IP camera? Crazy! Those kitchen advances never feel like advances to me though. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I'm tired of "needing" yet another box that gets hot. I am pretty sure an air fryer is just a small convection oven. You can take my panini press from my cold dead hands though.
raincole 1mo ago
It's called getting older.
- schnebbau 1mo ago
  Agreed. He's just old. He's been around the block and seen new tech releases a million times. It's still exciting (and has always been) for the young'uns.
  - bee_rider 1mo ago
    That’s what the post was asking about. He was interested to hear from “young’uns.”
sickophancy 1mo ago
Consider that it's probably not tech but rather a cycle of aesthetics you're experiencing. Just like films, music, or even sports, there are eras of a certain paradigm or aesthetic. What we consider the 'peak' is always evaluated in retrospect or in comparison to a previous peak. Neurologically, humans are naturally predisposed to evaluate the world in terms of "how much pleasure" an activity gives, and when you experience "more pleasure" (for example, riding a fast rollercoaster vs. a slow one) then the previous experience is often discarded or treated as inferior. In some cases that's true, but, by and large, these comparisons are again purely psychic in nature. What you viewed as more exciting was an age where advertising didn't cheapen your experiences. Overexposure/stimulation as a means of advertising, co-opted with combining social media with advertising to a startling degree is the true culprit behind what you're seeing, and as a captive audience, like the prisoners in Plato's cave, you are unable to look away...
jpecar 1mo ago
Don't worry, you're just getting old. It happens to all of us. At some point we simply stop being excited about new shiny things and start to prefer stuff we know and rely on. In especially bad cases, some start seeing new shiny things as threat to the stability of their lives.
joshdavham 1mo ago
> If you are in your 20s now and feel like writing down your thoughts about this topic, consider yourself challenged! I'd love to read them. I’m 29 so I guess I just barely qualify haha. But overall, I agree with your writing and can say as a technologist myself, I also rarely get excited about new technology - nor do my peers. There are occasional exceptions though. Near the beginning of this current GenAI revolution, I was frequently excited. Watching that SpaceX rocket land back on earth had me on the edge of my seat. I also recently bought AirPods and found the conversation awareness feature to be incredible. Similarly, I got my first fitness tracker and find it mind blowing how much it can measure by just zapping my wrist with light.
bee_rider 1mo ago
It isn’t that surprising that computers have become somewhat crap as they’ve gained ubiquitous adoption (that’s just the nature of appealing to everyone). IMO it is more surprising that nothing has really filled in that gap.
hombre_fatal 1mo ago
This is good because there are much better places to find fulfillment. It's like when you get a new smartphone and you baby it for those first couple weeks until, bam, it falls and gets a ding in it. Then after a brief sense of loss, you suddenly see it as a tool with utility and a lifespan. I think that's where you want to be with material things and technology.
liendolucas 1mo ago
The last technology that truly excited me was the ebook. I truly believe is one of the greatest gadgets ever invented. It's just fantastic the disconnection you get with it, the quality of the screen, how long battery lasts and obviously how many books you can carry in a small package.
- qsera 1mo ago
  >disconnection you get with it, the quality of the screen, how long battery lasts and obviously how many books you can carry in a small package After a while, It turned out that none of these mattered. And I am back to paper books..
baigy 1mo ago
The marginal payoff from incremental innovation produces lesser and lesser endorphins as we age. They increasingly become a smaller part of our experiences. And btw, by and large, this happens to every feeling, not just excitement from technological innovation.
- BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
  I hear that...
smallstepforman 1mo ago
Robotics, AI, hypersonic/Ramjets, affordable mobile data, streaming video, lots of innovation in the last 10 years.
- brabel 1mo ago
  Tiny batteries that can power laptops, drones, cars etc for hours.
BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
One thing I've thought about for a long time, as someone who's been interested in new technology and sci-fi for a long time: you still need to work; still need a job. With all this new technology that does things for us, there will be new things that need doing in order that we can pay for the things that do the old things for us. I still find this a jarring thought.
l337h4x0rz 1mo ago
- 90s: - video games were something truly new. before it, stories and fantasy was something to be enjoyed mostly through static medium. and games were the first medium that lets you interactively enjoy stories. - internet was something truly new. never before we get to connect with people by sharing things we create. and there's so many things were created out of genuine love and passion - late 2000s - social media were something truly new. it lets you connect with people and share things every era brought something truly novel to the table. but then something changed mid 2010s. and it's not entirely megacorps' fault. it's also us customers. we didn't want to pay. and thus the business model that promotes enshittified services were born and now we have to live with it.
Planktonne 1mo ago
Echoing others here, but I think part of it is that a lot of the new tech is designed to make things worse. If I think about new tech, all the examples that immediately spring to mind are negative ones: surveillance cameras, AI-enabled spam & propaganda, autonomous weaponry. The less flashy advances tend to be harder to get excited about, and they're also often negative. My computers get more expensive, but they also collect more data on me, and it's harder to get one without a bunch of unwanted features. People used to be excited about new tech because it was exciting and aspirational; I think we've lost a lot of that.
amarcheschi 1mo ago
>But maybe I'm wrong? If you are in your 20s now and feel like writing down your thoughts about this topic, consider yourself challenged! I'd love to read them. i'm 24. I think that improvements in tech nowadays mostly involve the hobbyist of any niche, while the general public is ever more satisfied with what already exists. sd to hd to full hd was cool, full hd to 1440p i can see the difference, at 4k yes but it is not so big. Miniled is something people won't really care about imho (and they can already go very bright, i'm only waiting for more minileds to be integrated in monitors before changing mine). Audio, well, most people will be satisfied with cheap razer/gaming/bose/whatever headphones are there. Sure anc is cool if you're in a noisy environment quite often Bikes, well at 24yo i'm not really knowledgeable to say whether a bianchi that costs more than a motorbike is worth the upgrade from an older model... but ebikes are kinda nice even for people outside of the cycling world However, what has happened with audio and video - and a change that i can perceive -, is the prices of things (not cpu/gpu related, for obvious reasons) coming down. oleds were so espensive ten years ago, now they are not. 4k minileds monitor are as expensive now as my regular non miniled 1440p va monitor from ~4/5 years ago. Hifiman has (permanently) slashed the prices of its headphones more than once over the years. It is not exciting as new tech but it is "just" nice p.s. wifi printers are a pain in the ass much more than cable printes, and for llms i am kinda happy with them, i'll give you that, they're a godsend for studying; i'm less excited about the idea they'll replace most workers
GuestFAUniverse 1mo ago
Oh come on... * Putting down the throttle of my first BEV was magic (a rented ID3 Pro rented, it's not even performing like mad, but RWD gets it done). I laughed manically and in tears until arriving at home. Even laid back acceleration is still fun. ICE cars have become boring to me. * The first time generating a longer working script with ChatGPT in its early incarnation was great! Correcting a broken web app by a junior dev with the help of Claude and ChatGPT was also crazy the first time. * Letting the drone of my brother in law start and land from my hand, making incredible camera moves by pushing a few buttons was surreal. * Hearing the first sounds of my mobile with Dolby Atmos was also like hallucinating. These tiny speakers have become unbelievable good for media consumption. * Playing a recent e-piano that even mimics damper and co-vibrating strings. The improvements in tactile and acoustic experience are subtle but great * I cannot wait to test a tone3000 neural amp modeling thingy -- the first time I heard a Kemper and tested even the basic Pod Go was also great. * First picture of a laser projector: blown away. Next level of sharp picture. ... So, I don't know what you're talking about.
- SomeHacker44 1mo ago
  Which e-piano please?
jshaqaw 1mo ago
I am a bit over 50. Most new computer tech doesn't hit me like it used to but occasionally I still get hit with wonder. I got that feeling trying the Apple Vision Pro in store demo. 50-something me still can't believe I have AI at my fingertips. For the most part though it's not that new tech isn't cool but as I get older, parts of life which seemed mundane as a kid or young man aren't quite so mundane anymore. As a teenager it seemed like family and loved ones were just there and part of the normal background. With years I see those moments with loved ones as precious, finite, and what it's all about. Tech is neat and sometimes very neat ... but it isn't what it's all about.
- qsera 1mo ago
  >50-something me still can't believe I have AI at my fingertips. You don't.
- brabel 1mo ago
  > As a teenager it seemed like family and loved ones were just there and part of the normal background. So true. I even thought family was annoying. Now that most are gone ( some dead, some barely keeping in touch ) I understand, too late, they were what it’s all about for sure.
Palomides 1mo ago
VR is probably the coolest new tech of the last decade to me, hanging out with friends and exploring weird spaces is so wild (sure there are lots of flaws and limitations but it's definitely exciting and new to me even as a jaded, increasingly luddite programmer) there are still new things and fun tech, don't give up!
redmattred 1mo ago
Tools for Conviviality (Ivan Illich) has this idea about the two watersheds of new technology. During the first watershed, it solves an actual problem + improves the lives of those who adopt it. During the second watershed, it gets institutionalized and the technology shifts into something that requires people serve it rather than serving those it’s intended to help. His examples are all old technologies like modern medicine, non party line wired phones, the radio, etc. but the ideas fit the shape of the technological advances we’re seeing in our lifetimes as well.
seancavorley 1mo ago
Now that you mention it, yeah. I remember my mom doing the watch this microwave thing boil a cup of water demo for months everytime someone stopped by. It was a show. The last one I remember like this, with both "I want to show" and "I want see" high demand like that, was the Siri launch. Someone in my office got it running and he had people coming to his cubicle all day asking to hear it.
- brabel 1mo ago
  Last time I saw it was a guy bringing a VR headset to the office. Some 8 years ago.
  - brazukadev 1mo ago
    Last time I saw it was a guy using ChatGPT to translate a conversation. Some weeks ago.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
julienchastang 1mo ago
I am not part of the group being polled (firmly ensconced in middle age), but I feel the opposite. Yes, the AI roll out has been shambolic to say the least, and it can also be annoyingly intrusive. On the plus side, AI is allowing me to take on projects that I would never have bothered in the past because the learning curve would have been too arduous. I am currently reverse engineering an embedded system going in there with a multimeter and logic analyzer. It is a lot of fun and I am learning a ton. If you told me five years ago that I would eventually be taking on such a project, I would not have believed you. On the job side, a lot of what I do involves troubleshooting (e.g., looking at reams of logs), and there too AI has been a boon. So, yes, actually excited about where things are going (with some misgivings).
stickfigure 1mo ago
We have self-driving cars and near-human AIs. And yet the author can't find something to get excited about?!?!? I'm slightly older than he is and I lived through all those changes he talks about. I'm still in awe every time I fire up Codex. This article sounds like depression talking.
- brazukadev 1mo ago
  self-driving cars isn't a reality besides in a few controlled environments and I empathize that near-human AIs being used as an excuse to lower wages and fire people isn't something to get excited about.
  - stickfigure 1mo ago
    "In theory" you can imagine all sorts of terrible scenarios that will make you depressed. In practice you can ride in a real self-driving car in a dozen major metro areas in the US. I have and they are fantastic. In practice you can fire up an LLM today and use it for research or writing code or organizing your finances or any of a million incredibly useful things. At present, the downsides are theoretical and the upsides are practical. The article says more about the author than the state of the world.
    - brazukadev 1mo ago
      In theory, you can pretend that the experience of one afluent person in a metro area in the US is enough to make the dystopian situation we are heading to looks fantastic. In practice, most people are fighting to keep their jobs if they have one, CEOs of corporations are talking daily about AI-driven layoffs and some of them even come to this forum to do exactly the same while talking about how this new era is bright and great. They make money through making other people hopeless and dependent.
      - stickfigure 1mo ago
        Unemployment in the US right now is historically very low and "dystopian situation" is your projection, not real life. The future is uncertain, but most objective metrics in the non-war-torn part of the world are positive right now.
driverdan 1mo ago
I do agree it feels different but there is still a lot of interesting and exciting tech innovation. OP is about the same age as me so my list will be from my lifetime. * Lithium batteries. They are one of the most important innovations of our generation. They are so much better than NiCads and lead acid batteries. Much of today's important tech, like mobile phones, wouldn't be possible without them. * Solar panels went from a novelty to something that we can put on our homes with a positive ROI in a short time. * EVs. If you haven't been in one go take a test drive. The prices are still too high, at least in the US, but Chinese innovation are pushing that down. * Driving automation such as radar cruise, lane assist, and other autonomous driving features. * Digital media, streaming or self hosted. Yes streaming services peaked 10+ years ago but the innovation is there. Having a small server in a closet hosting hundreds of 4k videos is quite an innovation compared to VHS. * Home automation. It was previously limited to wired devices for the rich. Now anyone can put together complex self-hosted home automation with inexpensive Zigbee/ZWave devices and a Raspberry Pi hosting Home Assistant. * Hobby electronics have become far more accessible and inexpensive. Arduino, raspberry pi, etc. * SDRs radically changed radio technology. * FDM/3D printing. * Other CNC manufacturing became accessible to hobbyists. * Bluetooth * WiFi * Progress in machine learning / AI, invention of LLMs
petra 1mo ago
There are just so many new technologies, some just as software, some in hardware,food,medicine, etc. But maybe it makes it harder to get excited from most things. For example, once you browse Anna's library, or ask Claude to develop some software for you, it's harder to get excited from most things.
modriano 1mo ago
As I've aged and grown as a data engineer/scientist, unsurprisingly, it has become much rarer that I encounter something new that seems like magic (ie is something with functionality that expands my understanding of what is possible), but through new hobbies or explorations into new fields, I continually discover new and exciting uses of technology that adds neat functionality to my life. For example, maybe a year or two ago, my wife started getting into bird watching, which introduced me to the Merlin Bird Id app [0], which (using my location, the date, and audio from my phone's mic) identifies the birds around me on walks. I can walk around and get mostly accurate identifications that help me better understand a complex and rich facet of the world that I had mostly ignored before! Super cool! Another tech thing I recently learned a lot about that got me excited: I was playing around with a personal project to produce safer bike routes and I finally dug into OpenStreetMap [1, 2]. I had been aware of OSM for a long while, but taking this project on led me to look for a source for freely available route segment data that I could collect and use to build upon, and I found OSM was perfect for this. Digging into the source, I discovered it's essentially a Wikipedia-esque project (a triumph of the human species) where anyone can contribute edits to maps and they're immediately published worldwide! I was and remain very excited about this project. When I just stay in my technical lane, I get desensitized to the cool stuff people are doing (which becomes hard to find in our ecosystems that have sold our attention to the highest bidders), but when I go out looking, people are still doing exciting stuff. [0] https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap [2] https://www.openstreetmap.org https://www.openstreetmap.org
josefritzishere 1mo ago
Most modern tech solutions feel like scams: illegal cabs, illegal hotels, gambling, price fixing, loan sharking, data harvesting, IP theft, mass surveillance... It stopped making our lives better and became mired in crime.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago
1772844707 | Burdened by Tech, Gen Z Is Flocking to DVDs and VHS [video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqoTO9kO6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqoTO9kO6c | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283157 1775416796 | Gen Z is building an analog future a $5B+ opportunity | https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gen-z-engineering-analog-future-090000793.html https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gen-z-... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652884 1776360520 | Why Gen Zers are trashing smartphones: 'People are just sick of it' | https://nypost.com/2026/04/16/tech/gen-z-and-parents-are-hitting-rewind-on-tech-people-are-just-sick-of-it/ https://nypost.com/2026/04/16/tech/gen-z-and-parents-are-hit... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47796713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47796713 1777577258 | Discomfort with modern technology shapes Gen Z's desire to live in the past | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-modern-technology-gen-z-desire-live-past-poll-rcna340897 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-mo... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967131 1778400195 | Gen Z Resentment Toward AI Grows as Adoption Stagnates and Workplace Fears Mount | https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/gen-z-resentment-toward-ai-grows-as-adoption-stagnates-and-workplace-fears-mount https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/gen... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081942 1778917719 | Why Gen Z Is Returning to Analog Tech | https://internetdecode.com/gen-z-digital-detox-analog-tech-comeback/ https://internetdecode.com/gen-z-digital-detox-analog-tech-c... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48157828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48157828 1783085911 | The Luddite festival harnessing Gen Z's rage against Big Tech | https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harn... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48774892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48774892 1783094027 | The Luddite festival harnessing Gen Zs rage against Big Tech | https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harn... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48776496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48776496 1783677638 | Neo-Luddites: The Gen Z Backlash to Big Tech [video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpV97A5I90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpV97A5I90 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857916 1784293384 | Gen Z is pushing back against AI a reminder that the future isn't written | https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/gen-z-pushback-against-ai-6258016 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/gen-z-pushback-ag... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946910 1785690397 | Why Gen Z is nostalgic for a world it never knew | https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/why-gen-z-is-nostalgic-for-a-world-it-never-knew/ https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/why-gen-z-is-nostalgic-fo... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146274
keeda 1mo ago
It might be due to a combination of a few things: 1. The compounding acceleration of tech has numbed us to the marvels that are happening around us. 2. Big Tech, and Capitalism in general, has been getting more and more extractive than innovative for a long time, which has made us cynical. (Or maybe it's always been like this, we just notice it more as we age.) 3. New form factors excite us more than new capabilites because they're much more tangible. Things like CRISPR and GLP-1 are basically miracles but don't impact our day-to-day, whereas the iPhone revolutionized how we interact with the world on a daily basis. 4. Movies and TV have portrayed science fiction and futuristic technology so convincingly for so long, that when those things actually come true we don't really notice. I think these explain what's happening with the current AI revolution. The technology, if you think about it, is objectively insane. It fills me with excitement and dread. However we've seen countless variations of AI in popular media for decades so it doesn't seem "new." Worse, GenAI was introduced to us as a chatbot, a form-factor even more underwhelming than the mostly useless Siri and Alexa, let alone humanoid robots or holograms. And to top it off, it's threatening to take our jobs, something that popular SciFi didn't really talk about, so already we are primed to look at it more negatively. But I cannot overstate how impossible it was just 4 short years ago for computers to do any of what they are doing today, and how much it will change the world. And yet look at the discourse around it. It's like some weird, alien life has suddenly sprung up amongst us and we're all just going, "But it writes crappy code though."
holt62 1mo ago
DVD over VHS was pure upgrade — better quality, no rewinding, no wear. Hard to name a recent tech shift where you didn't lose something in the trade.
- nebalee 1mo ago
  I dont think it's that flawless. DVDs introduced some anti-consumer features to limit what you are allowed to do with your media that are now widespread, like copy-protection/drm/hdcp limiting your choice of playback devices and preventing you from creating backups, or enforced market segmentation through region-codes. Every VHS was rewritable, only special DVD were.
readthenotes1 1mo ago
Yes it is you getting grumpy, not older. My 95-year-old great granddad finds delight regularly, from his great sounding carbon fiber trombone (you try holding a full brass one as an nonogenarian!) to how much self-driving or AI has improved in 2025 to now.
47thpresident 1mo ago
Recently, I took an intercontinental flight, and the plane had complimentary Starlink internet and Live TV channels throughout the whole journey for all cabin classes. I know the technology has been around for a while but watching a World Cup game in real-time whilst soaring at 1000kmh/35,000ft over the Arabian desert sounds like science fiction decades ago. That's just one small example. I think that the hedonic treadmill is hitting people at a much higher rate than before.
ruicraveiro 29d ago
I think that this is enshittification seen from a different angle.
vrighter 29d ago
New tech nowadays usually means more restrictions on how I can use my own stuff. Oh I can't use the computing machine I have right in front of me right now? I have to rent your computing machines to do it (which you rent from someone else)?

74 points by wrxd 1mo ago

> Of course nowadays days I see the downsides of these devices and we're getting to a point where the cons outweigh the pros, but back when I bought the first smart phone (I guess in 2012 or so, I was relatively late to the party) it felt like a leap into the future compared to what I had before. I know a lot of people have a troubled relationship to their phone, but this is really surprising to me. Would I want to go back to a world where I can't conveniently contact people, navigate the world, look up anything I want to know in an second, and set timers by yelling at the air rather than getting sticky foccacia dough in the cracks of my egg timer? Not even a little bit. The last time I personally felt the excitement the author describes was probably with the announcement of Apple Vision Pro, but unfortunately that product went nowhere.

throwatdem12311 1mo ago
I bought a flip phone that blocks web browsers and social media apps. All other apps work though. Best of both worlds.
- weakfish 1mo ago
  Would love to know what phone :)
BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
> set timers by yelling at the air rather than getting sticky foccacia dough in the cracks of my egg timer? I know it's mainly in jest, but this always strikes me as an odd example of 'high tech'. It feels like a 'first you create the universe' solution to using an egg timer with doughy fingers. Egg timers are simple devices that clean easy and can handle dough transfer. They are (or perhaps only 'were ') built as fit for purpose. Yes, it's just an extra thing the 'high tech' can do, but damn it's an awful example of the (reached) potential of high tech. A better example could be: I can ask the air to buy me a big mac and have it paid for and delivered to my house within 30 minutes all while I'm changing a nappy and putting the baby to bed. There's a whole stack of systems needing to communicate to make that thing happen.
- brazukadev 1mo ago
  I was expecting a much better example. Not many people are looking to micro-optimize their time. An app to do that (and maybe choose something cheaper and better than big mac) already exist. Whatever improvement is marginal. Your example reminds me of the famous chatbots buying plane tickets. There is no demand of people looking for a chatbot to buy plane tickets.

davidw 1mo ago

High quality eBikes are pretty amazing: I have nearly 4000 miles on one of ours, and nearly all of those are replacing car trips around town, including most of our grocery shopping. While not revolutionary - they're kind of an incremental improvement - I'm pretty impressed by all the things a cheap Chromebook can do.

redthorn 1mo ago
We went from hipsters with tattoos on fixies to this guy
dosisking 1mo ago
eBikes may be pretty amazing in isolation, but as a pedestrian, I absolutely hate people who ride eBikes.
- swiftcoder 1mo ago
  Do you hate e-bikes, or do you hate city planning that treats e-bikes as second-class citizens, and forces them into direct competition with cars and pedestrians?
  - dosisking 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - loco5niner 1mo ago
      I know 2 middle-aged to older ladies who both had bad accidents after their husbands bought or rented an e-bike for them that they did not have the skillset to handle. Months of recovery, thankfully nothing life-threatening. > To those people I wish a slow and painful death. I'm on generally the same page, but this is a bit much.
    - tomhow 29d ago
      Please don't post ragebait or wish anyone death on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. We have to ban accounts that do this repeatedly. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

astura 1mo ago

There's a term for that, it's called "getting old" and older people have been saying this kinda stuff for generations.

actionfromafar 1mo ago
The kids don't seem very excited anymore either from what I can tell.
- Sarky 1mo ago
  Have to agree with you. They are bored most of the time and waiting for something to happen to them.
- XorNot 1mo ago
  You're old, you have no idea what the kids are into. How accurate did the endless news reports about your generation feel when you were young?
stvltvs 1mo ago
I'm getting old, but it seems like we're all more ambivalent about new tech. Maybe I'm projecting, but we don't expect tech to be the solution to human problems as much as we used to. The boundless optimism about the World Wide Web has putrified into techno-pessimism for at least half of us.

pbohun 1mo ago

I feel the same way. I think the difference is that new tech used to be an improvement to your life. New tech is there simply to suck life (your attention) and money away from you. There are exceptions of course, But the general trend is worrying.

BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
New tech is so you can do your job more efficiently to get more X for less time for your employer, to satisfy the customer, to pay the share holder.

lenerdenator 1mo ago

I've been playing Project Zomboid with my friends. It's an isometric survival game set in 1993 in a fictional area around Louisville, Kentucky. It has VHS tapes, TV and radio broadcasts, ham radio, CDs, and landlines in it. So far in my playing experience, there's no real internet component. There's some sort of disease outbreak that turns people into zombies and society starts to collapse. Eventually things like the power grid and water/sewage infrastructure break down. Food rots. Gasoline runs out. It's basically guaranteed that you and your teammates will die in this game. Even after living through a pandemic and all of the shit that came with it, and despite the grim atmosphere of the game, I still miss the time period that this game symbolized. I know I was only a child during the 90s and the era had its real problems, but there were good things about it and the state of technology at the time that have gotten worse in the decades since. It was a time when media was a physical good and had meaning, when there wasn't a constant deluge of information, when my attention was less valuable than advertisers have made it today, and there was, at least for the majority of society, a shared informational reality. That's all gone and there are massively powerful interests working to make sure it stays gone.

deflator 1mo ago

I still get excited by the sheer power of current and upcoming tech It may be the same stuff we had 20 years ago, but the specs! What was a supercomputer before is now just a component in a datacenter, one of 72 per rack.

bluGill 1mo ago
What used to be a super computing center now fits in my pocket and runs on batteries. I haven't tried, but I'm reasonably sure my phone can emulate a Cray-1 at faster than the original.
- tverbeure 1mo ago
  A Cray-1 had 180M flops. Your phone can emulate it as speeds many times faster.
criddell 1mo ago
I used to be like that. I would pore over feature matrices in Computer Shopper ads and pick out stuff I couldn't afford and wasn't going to buy. Then, about 7 years ago I realized that for the first time, I was more or less happy with the tech in my life. My computer was good, I liked my phone, my tablet, and my ereader. I had a good TV and stereo I used all the time. The appliances in my home are reliable and work well. The tools I use in my garage and yard are all fine. With Android Auto or Car Play (I've used both) even my car felt like it had crossed some threshold of being good enough that I didn't really have the itch for something better. I had been working full time for 30ish years and had accumulated a lot of stuff that makes my life better and there really isn't much more that I want and certainly nothing that I need. When Christmas rolls around and people want gift ideas for me, it's hard for me to think of things. My favorite thing in the world is to have a few days off and no plans or commitments and I can sort drill bits, change my guitar strings, watch a movie, or take a nap.

1attice 1mo ago

Tech is no longer exciting to me because I no longer feel a connection between tech improvement and world (or personal life) improvement. I used to read sci fi for the wonder, but now I read it with dread, for Chekov's Gun is a Torment Nexus, and if you introduce a Torment Nexus in Act 1 of a sci fi dystopia, it will be fired IRL by act 3. Deeper lurks a more chilling question: what, on a dying planet run by fascists, should I do with my time?

cindyllm 1mo ago
[dead]

Aurornis 1mo ago

I remember my grandparents making this exact same complaint: All of the new technologies during their younger years were amazing and improved the world. All of the technologies that came along in their later years were only complicating life after they had settled into comfortable routines. In my hobbies and other real world activities I cross paths with people in their 20s a lot. It’s really refreshing to see their excitement about new technologies and the future, contrasted with all the cynicism you get when you spend time in places with a lot of jaded adults who wish the world would stop changing. I think it’s natural to wish that technology would pause right at the point in your life and career where you’ve got it all figured out and lose your appetite for new things. It feels good to be on top of it all and feel like your knowledge, routines, and career skills are never going to go out of style. It feels uncomfortable when the world continues to change after you’ve settled into something familiar and routine.

coldbrewed 1mo ago
The difference is that their TV wasn't spying them but our TVs definitely are (aka ACR).
- ThrowawayTestr 1mo ago
  My TV isn't connected to the Internet
  - M95D 29d ago
    How do you know? Seriously. Manufacturers could add modems to bypass the need for a wifi or cable connection, like they do in cars. I would expect by now that's a valid question to ask if I were to buy a new TV.
- Aurornis 1mo ago
  They all had stories of friends, family members, and siblings who died at young ages from conditions that are treatable with modern technology. My grandfathers both benefited greatly from new technology of their times like hearing aids and various cardiac interventions. I don’t like a TV reporting analytics either, but if we’re looking at technological advancements as a whole that seems like small potatoes.

boxed 1mo ago

You do have to move your focus for sure. Gadgets used to be cool, but now you'd have to look at SpaceX or Stoke for space, and all the crazy ambitious fusion startups, or Quaise. Those are the ones I'm tracking at least..

handzhiev 1mo ago

I used to not be excited about the next consumer tech gadget or the next JS framework, but I am now pretty excited about transforming new tech now (AI, energy, space, etc).

fantasizr 1mo ago

I'm excited about self driving cars for aging boomer and drunk mobility. Most consumer tech seems to be pure agitation and slop. Can't seem to think that ways to engage media is getting better (paid streaming now with ads etc.) TVs take a forever to change channel, call quality seems to be worse than analog etc.

ericmay 1mo ago
Self-driving cars are really cool but they won't really solve our transit problems, they'll probably just make them worse and more expensive. We should be focusing on better development patterns (appropriate density - not skyscrapers and not suburbia), walking, biking, and hopping on a tram or something along those lines. Self-driving cars are an additive technology, and there is certainly a place for them, but they should be at best (like all cars) your 3rd or maybe even 4th best option for daily activities. Poor driving isn't limited to drunks or boomers.
- fantasizr 1mo ago
  I'm a single issue voter to stop old people from driving when they shouldn't.
- BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
  You are absolutely right, and the only negative is the utopian-esque description, therefore it'll never quite work as well as it should - but I think aiming for that will still get something better than what we've got. Your comment just made me think about the whole self-driving car thing as an extension of the car-centric thinking of the US (and how car-centricity is essentially anti-social, but that's beside the point), and now even the US is losing the car race to China, but it will maintain it's car-centric philosophy based on momentum rather than practicality. Could public transport be a national security priority? (mostly tongue in cheek, but just a smidge not).
  - ericmay 1mo ago
    Yea, it is an extension. It's additive. The safest car is the one that's parked. Car-centric culture has a lot of negative externalities. But the entire society is geared toward cars and propping them up. Cars themselves, auto jobs, departments of highways, tires, oil, gas, insurance, fast food, COSTCO, you name it. Most of those things can be replaced with something as simple as a sidewalk and better urban planning. If your goal is to prop up an industry, self-driving cars will do that for you. If your goal is to increase autonomy [1], wealth, entrepreneurship, and happiness and decrease death and health concerns, racism, obesity, and other things you need to move away from car-only building and design patterns. I also think busses are a problem because they just reinforce bad habits. For most municipalities a bus is just a worse version of your car which is why they're largely unsuccessful for the masses. Bike/walk/rail is, in my view, quite literally the only good path forward for future transportation development. I don't think the US is losing the car race to China though. What race? Why are we even in a race all of a sudden? I drive an EV and like them but aside from emissions I'm not sure one is really all that better than another (I find EVs more convenient though). [1] Been a bad person lately? Maybe the government and the vehicle facial recognition technology says sorry no driving for you. Now what? Secondarily for the elderly (as the single-issue voter OP has mentioned) walking/biking/rail allows for better outcomes and for folks to participate more in daily life. Driving becomes more and more hazardous as we age and folks wind up stuck at home.

zer00eyz 1mo ago

Cheap radios are in everything now. Think about all the fun wifi, zigbee, matter devices that you can play with (if you are inclined). Meshtastic and LoRa is a great toy to play with. The kitchen is full of interesting things, Sous Vide is great, the air fryer is... interesting and useful. Lots of people love their robot vacuum LED strip lighting has gone from nerdy to high design and has interesting features now. Those "VCR" and "iPhone" moments are rare. There is a lot of practical innovations that make my life better and I would be hard pressed to give up.

doubled112 1mo ago
The cheap radios boggle my mind a little bit. I can order a wireless transmitter for an electric guitar for cheaper than the cable next to it. How is this possible? $18 ESP32 with a camera attached and WiFi for an instant cheap IP camera? Crazy! Those kitchen advances never feel like advances to me though. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but I'm tired of "needing" yet another box that gets hot. I am pretty sure an air fryer is just a small convection oven. You can take my panini press from my cold dead hands though.

raincole 1mo ago

It's called getting older.

schnebbau 1mo ago
Agreed. He's just old. He's been around the block and seen new tech releases a million times. It's still exciting (and has always been) for the young'uns.
- bee_rider 1mo ago
  That’s what the post was asking about. He was interested to hear from “young’uns.”

sickophancy 1mo ago

Consider that it's probably not tech but rather a cycle of aesthetics you're experiencing. Just like films, music, or even sports, there are eras of a certain paradigm or aesthetic. What we consider the 'peak' is always evaluated in retrospect or in comparison to a previous peak. Neurologically, humans are naturally predisposed to evaluate the world in terms of "how much pleasure" an activity gives, and when you experience "more pleasure" (for example, riding a fast rollercoaster vs. a slow one) then the previous experience is often discarded or treated as inferior. In some cases that's true, but, by and large, these comparisons are again purely psychic in nature. What you viewed as more exciting was an age where advertising didn't cheapen your experiences. Overexposure/stimulation as a means of advertising, co-opted with combining social media with advertising to a startling degree is the true culprit behind what you're seeing, and as a captive audience, like the prisoners in Plato's cave, you are unable to look away...

jpecar 1mo ago

Don't worry, you're just getting old. It happens to all of us. At some point we simply stop being excited about new shiny things and start to prefer stuff we know and rely on. In especially bad cases, some start seeing new shiny things as threat to the stability of their lives.

joshdavham 1mo ago

> If you are in your 20s now and feel like writing down your thoughts about this topic, consider yourself challenged! I'd love to read them. I’m 29 so I guess I just barely qualify haha. But overall, I agree with your writing and can say as a technologist myself, I also rarely get excited about new technology - nor do my peers. There are occasional exceptions though. Near the beginning of this current GenAI revolution, I was frequently excited. Watching that SpaceX rocket land back on earth had me on the edge of my seat. I also recently bought AirPods and found the conversation awareness feature to be incredible. Similarly, I got my first fitness tracker and find it mind blowing how much it can measure by just zapping my wrist with light.

bee_rider 1mo ago

It isn’t that surprising that computers have become somewhat crap as they’ve gained ubiquitous adoption (that’s just the nature of appealing to everyone). IMO it is more surprising that nothing has really filled in that gap.

hombre_fatal 1mo ago

This is good because there are much better places to find fulfillment. It's like when you get a new smartphone and you baby it for those first couple weeks until, bam, it falls and gets a ding in it. Then after a brief sense of loss, you suddenly see it as a tool with utility and a lifespan. I think that's where you want to be with material things and technology.

liendolucas 1mo ago

The last technology that truly excited me was the ebook. I truly believe is one of the greatest gadgets ever invented. It's just fantastic the disconnection you get with it, the quality of the screen, how long battery lasts and obviously how many books you can carry in a small package.

qsera 1mo ago
>disconnection you get with it, the quality of the screen, how long battery lasts and obviously how many books you can carry in a small package After a while, It turned out that none of these mattered. And I am back to paper books..

baigy 1mo ago

The marginal payoff from incremental innovation produces lesser and lesser endorphins as we age. They increasingly become a smaller part of our experiences. And btw, by and large, this happens to every feeling, not just excitement from technological innovation.

BLKNSLVR 1mo ago
I hear that...

smallstepforman 1mo ago

Robotics, AI, hypersonic/Ramjets, affordable mobile data, streaming video, lots of innovation in the last 10 years.

brabel 1mo ago
Tiny batteries that can power laptops, drones, cars etc for hours.

BLKNSLVR 1mo ago

One thing I've thought about for a long time, as someone who's been interested in new technology and sci-fi for a long time: you still need to work; still need a job. With all this new technology that does things for us, there will be new things that need doing in order that we can pay for the things that do the old things for us. I still find this a jarring thought.

l337h4x0rz 1mo ago

- 90s: - video games were something truly new. before it, stories and fantasy was something to be enjoyed mostly through static medium. and games were the first medium that lets you interactively enjoy stories. - internet was something truly new. never before we get to connect with people by sharing things we create. and there's so many things were created out of genuine love and passion - late 2000s - social media were something truly new. it lets you connect with people and share things every era brought something truly novel to the table. but then something changed mid 2010s. and it's not entirely megacorps' fault. it's also us customers. we didn't want to pay. and thus the business model that promotes enshittified services were born and now we have to live with it.

Planktonne 1mo ago

Echoing others here, but I think part of it is that a lot of the new tech is designed to make things worse. If I think about new tech, all the examples that immediately spring to mind are negative ones: surveillance cameras, AI-enabled spam & propaganda, autonomous weaponry. The less flashy advances tend to be harder to get excited about, and they're also often negative. My computers get more expensive, but they also collect more data on me, and it's harder to get one without a bunch of unwanted features. People used to be excited about new tech because it was exciting and aspirational; I think we've lost a lot of that.

amarcheschi 1mo ago

>But maybe I'm wrong? If you are in your 20s now and feel like writing down your thoughts about this topic, consider yourself challenged! I'd love to read them. i'm 24. I think that improvements in tech nowadays mostly involve the hobbyist of any niche, while the general public is ever more satisfied with what already exists. sd to hd to full hd was cool, full hd to 1440p i can see the difference, at 4k yes but it is not so big. Miniled is something people won't really care about imho (and they can already go very bright, i'm only waiting for more minileds to be integrated in monitors before changing mine). Audio, well, most people will be satisfied with cheap razer/gaming/bose/whatever headphones are there. Sure anc is cool if you're in a noisy environment quite often Bikes, well at 24yo i'm not really knowledgeable to say whether a bianchi that costs more than a motorbike is worth the upgrade from an older model... but ebikes are kinda nice even for people outside of the cycling world However, what has happened with audio and video - and a change that i can perceive -, is the prices of things (not cpu/gpu related, for obvious reasons) coming down. oleds were so espensive ten years ago, now they are not. 4k minileds monitor are as expensive now as my regular non miniled 1440p va monitor from ~4/5 years ago. Hifiman has (permanently) slashed the prices of its headphones more than once over the years. It is not exciting as new tech but it is "just" nice p.s. wifi printers are a pain in the ass much more than cable printes, and for llms i am kinda happy with them, i'll give you that, they're a godsend for studying; i'm less excited about the idea they'll replace most workers

GuestFAUniverse 1mo ago

Oh come on... * Putting down the throttle of my first BEV was magic (a rented ID3 Pro rented, it's not even performing like mad, but RWD gets it done). I laughed manically and in tears until arriving at home. Even laid back acceleration is still fun. ICE cars have become boring to me. * The first time generating a longer working script with ChatGPT in its early incarnation was great! Correcting a broken web app by a junior dev with the help of Claude and ChatGPT was also crazy the first time. * Letting the drone of my brother in law start and land from my hand, making incredible camera moves by pushing a few buttons was surreal. * Hearing the first sounds of my mobile with Dolby Atmos was also like hallucinating. These tiny speakers have become unbelievable good for media consumption. * Playing a recent e-piano that even mimics damper and co-vibrating strings. The improvements in tactile and acoustic experience are subtle but great * I cannot wait to test a tone3000 neural amp modeling thingy -- the first time I heard a Kemper and tested even the basic Pod Go was also great. * First picture of a laser projector: blown away. Next level of sharp picture. ... So, I don't know what you're talking about.

SomeHacker44 1mo ago
Which e-piano please?

jshaqaw 1mo ago

I am a bit over 50. Most new computer tech doesn't hit me like it used to but occasionally I still get hit with wonder. I got that feeling trying the Apple Vision Pro in store demo. 50-something me still can't believe I have AI at my fingertips. For the most part though it's not that new tech isn't cool but as I get older, parts of life which seemed mundane as a kid or young man aren't quite so mundane anymore. As a teenager it seemed like family and loved ones were just there and part of the normal background. With years I see those moments with loved ones as precious, finite, and what it's all about. Tech is neat and sometimes very neat ... but it isn't what it's all about.

qsera 1mo ago
>50-something me still can't believe I have AI at my fingertips. You don't.
brabel 1mo ago
> As a teenager it seemed like family and loved ones were just there and part of the normal background. So true. I even thought family was annoying. Now that most are gone ( some dead, some barely keeping in touch ) I understand, too late, they were what it’s all about for sure.

Palomides 1mo ago

VR is probably the coolest new tech of the last decade to me, hanging out with friends and exploring weird spaces is so wild (sure there are lots of flaws and limitations but it's definitely exciting and new to me even as a jaded, increasingly luddite programmer) there are still new things and fun tech, don't give up!

redmattred 1mo ago

Tools for Conviviality (Ivan Illich) has this idea about the two watersheds of new technology. During the first watershed, it solves an actual problem + improves the lives of those who adopt it. During the second watershed, it gets institutionalized and the technology shifts into something that requires people serve it rather than serving those it’s intended to help. His examples are all old technologies like modern medicine, non party line wired phones, the radio, etc. but the ideas fit the shape of the technological advances we’re seeing in our lifetimes as well.

seancavorley 1mo ago

Now that you mention it, yeah. I remember my mom doing the watch this microwave thing boil a cup of water demo for months everytime someone stopped by. It was a show. The last one I remember like this, with both "I want to show" and "I want see" high demand like that, was the Siri launch. Someone in my office got it running and he had people coming to his cubicle all day asking to hear it.

brabel 1mo ago
Last time I saw it was a guy bringing a VR headset to the office. Some 8 years ago.
- brazukadev 1mo ago
  Last time I saw it was a guy using ChatGPT to translate a conversation. Some weeks ago.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

julienchastang 1mo ago

I am not part of the group being polled (firmly ensconced in middle age), but I feel the opposite. Yes, the AI roll out has been shambolic to say the least, and it can also be annoyingly intrusive. On the plus side, AI is allowing me to take on projects that I would never have bothered in the past because the learning curve would have been too arduous. I am currently reverse engineering an embedded system going in there with a multimeter and logic analyzer. It is a lot of fun and I am learning a ton. If you told me five years ago that I would eventually be taking on such a project, I would not have believed you. On the job side, a lot of what I do involves troubleshooting (e.g., looking at reams of logs), and there too AI has been a boon. So, yes, actually excited about where things are going (with some misgivings).

stickfigure 1mo ago

We have self-driving cars and near-human AIs. And yet the author can't find something to get excited about?!?!? I'm slightly older than he is and I lived through all those changes he talks about. I'm still in awe every time I fire up Codex. This article sounds like depression talking.

brazukadev 1mo ago
self-driving cars isn't a reality besides in a few controlled environments and I empathize that near-human AIs being used as an excuse to lower wages and fire people isn't something to get excited about.
- stickfigure 1mo ago
  "In theory" you can imagine all sorts of terrible scenarios that will make you depressed. In practice you can ride in a real self-driving car in a dozen major metro areas in the US. I have and they are fantastic. In practice you can fire up an LLM today and use it for research or writing code or organizing your finances or any of a million incredibly useful things. At present, the downsides are theoretical and the upsides are practical. The article says more about the author than the state of the world.
  - brazukadev 1mo ago
    In theory, you can pretend that the experience of one afluent person in a metro area in the US is enough to make the dystopian situation we are heading to looks fantastic. In practice, most people are fighting to keep their jobs if they have one, CEOs of corporations are talking daily about AI-driven layoffs and some of them even come to this forum to do exactly the same while talking about how this new era is bright and great. They make money through making other people hopeless and dependent.
    - stickfigure 1mo ago
      Unemployment in the US right now is historically very low and "dystopian situation" is your projection, not real life. The future is uncertain, but most objective metrics in the non-war-torn part of the world are positive right now.

driverdan 1mo ago

I do agree it feels different but there is still a lot of interesting and exciting tech innovation. OP is about the same age as me so my list will be from my lifetime. * Lithium batteries. They are one of the most important innovations of our generation. They are so much better than NiCads and lead acid batteries. Much of today's important tech, like mobile phones, wouldn't be possible without them. * Solar panels went from a novelty to something that we can put on our homes with a positive ROI in a short time. * EVs. If you haven't been in one go take a test drive. The prices are still too high, at least in the US, but Chinese innovation are pushing that down. * Driving automation such as radar cruise, lane assist, and other autonomous driving features. * Digital media, streaming or self hosted. Yes streaming services peaked 10+ years ago but the innovation is there. Having a small server in a closet hosting hundreds of 4k videos is quite an innovation compared to VHS. * Home automation. It was previously limited to wired devices for the rich. Now anyone can put together complex self-hosted home automation with inexpensive Zigbee/ZWave devices and a Raspberry Pi hosting Home Assistant. * Hobby electronics have become far more accessible and inexpensive. Arduino, raspberry pi, etc. * SDRs radically changed radio technology. * FDM/3D printing. * Other CNC manufacturing became accessible to hobbyists. * Bluetooth * WiFi * Progress in machine learning / AI, invention of LLMs

petra 1mo ago

There are just so many new technologies, some just as software, some in hardware,food,medicine, etc. But maybe it makes it harder to get excited from most things. For example, once you browse Anna's library, or ask Claude to develop some software for you, it's harder to get excited from most things.

modriano 1mo ago

As I've aged and grown as a data engineer/scientist, unsurprisingly, it has become much rarer that I encounter something new that seems like magic (ie is something with functionality that expands my understanding of what is possible), but through new hobbies or explorations into new fields, I continually discover new and exciting uses of technology that adds neat functionality to my life. For example, maybe a year or two ago, my wife started getting into bird watching, which introduced me to the Merlin Bird Id app [0], which (using my location, the date, and audio from my phone's mic) identifies the birds around me on walks. I can walk around and get mostly accurate identifications that help me better understand a complex and rich facet of the world that I had mostly ignored before! Super cool! Another tech thing I recently learned a lot about that got me excited: I was playing around with a personal project to produce safer bike routes and I finally dug into OpenStreetMap [1, 2]. I had been aware of OSM for a long while, but taking this project on led me to look for a source for freely available route segment data that I could collect and use to build upon, and I found OSM was perfect for this. Digging into the source, I discovered it's essentially a Wikipedia-esque project (a triumph of the human species) where anyone can contribute edits to maps and they're immediately published worldwide! I was and remain very excited about this project. When I just stay in my technical lane, I get desensitized to the cool stuff people are doing (which becomes hard to find in our ecosystems that have sold our attention to the highest bidders), but when I go out looking, people are still doing exciting stuff. [0] https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap [2] https://www.openstreetmap.org https://www.openstreetmap.org

josefritzishere 1mo ago

Most modern tech solutions feel like scams: illegal cabs, illegal hotels, gambling, price fixing, loan sharking, data harvesting, IP theft, mass surveillance... It stopped making our lives better and became mired in crime.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago

1772844707 | Burdened by Tech, Gen Z Is Flocking to DVDs and VHS [video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqoTO9kO6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqoTO9kO6c | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283157 1775416796 | Gen Z is building an analog future a $5B+ opportunity | https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gen-z-engineering-analog-future-090000793.html https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/gen-z-... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652884 1776360520 | Why Gen Zers are trashing smartphones: 'People are just sick of it' | https://nypost.com/2026/04/16/tech/gen-z-and-parents-are-hitting-rewind-on-tech-people-are-just-sick-of-it/ https://nypost.com/2026/04/16/tech/gen-z-and-parents-are-hit... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47796713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47796713 1777577258 | Discomfort with modern technology shapes Gen Z's desire to live in the past | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-modern-technology-gen-z-desire-live-past-poll-rcna340897 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/discomfort-mo... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967131 1778400195 | Gen Z Resentment Toward AI Grows as Adoption Stagnates and Workplace Fears Mount | https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/gen-z-resentment-toward-ai-grows-as-adoption-stagnates-and-workplace-fears-mount https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about-us/newsroom/gen... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081942 1778917719 | Why Gen Z Is Returning to Analog Tech | https://internetdecode.com/gen-z-digital-detox-analog-tech-comeback/ https://internetdecode.com/gen-z-digital-detox-analog-tech-c... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48157828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48157828 1783085911 | The Luddite festival harnessing Gen Z's rage against Big Tech | https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harn... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48774892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48774892 1783094027 | The Luddite festival harnessing Gen Zs rage against Big Tech | https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harnessing-gen-zs-rage-against-big-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-luddite-festival-harn... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48776496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48776496 1783677638 | Neo-Luddites: The Gen Z Backlash to Big Tech [video] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpV97A5I90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpV97A5I90 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48857916 1784293384 | Gen Z is pushing back against AI a reminder that the future isn't written | https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/gen-z-pushback-against-ai-6258016 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/gen-z-pushback-ag... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946910 1785690397 | Why Gen Z is nostalgic for a world it never knew | https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/why-gen-z-is-nostalgic-for-a-world-it-never-knew/ https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/why-gen-z-is-nostalgic-fo... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146274

keeda 1mo ago

It might be due to a combination of a few things: 1. The compounding acceleration of tech has numbed us to the marvels that are happening around us. 2. Big Tech, and Capitalism in general, has been getting more and more extractive than innovative for a long time, which has made us cynical. (Or maybe it's always been like this, we just notice it more as we age.) 3. New form factors excite us more than new capabilites because they're much more tangible. Things like CRISPR and GLP-1 are basically miracles but don't impact our day-to-day, whereas the iPhone revolutionized how we interact with the world on a daily basis. 4. Movies and TV have portrayed science fiction and futuristic technology so convincingly for so long, that when those things actually come true we don't really notice. I think these explain what's happening with the current AI revolution. The technology, if you think about it, is objectively insane. It fills me with excitement and dread. However we've seen countless variations of AI in popular media for decades so it doesn't seem "new." Worse, GenAI was introduced to us as a chatbot, a form-factor even more underwhelming than the mostly useless Siri and Alexa, let alone humanoid robots or holograms. And to top it off, it's threatening to take our jobs, something that popular SciFi didn't really talk about, so already we are primed to look at it more negatively. But I cannot overstate how impossible it was just 4 short years ago for computers to do any of what they are doing today, and how much it will change the world. And yet look at the discourse around it. It's like some weird, alien life has suddenly sprung up amongst us and we're all just going, "But it writes crappy code though."

holt62 1mo ago

DVD over VHS was pure upgrade — better quality, no rewinding, no wear. Hard to name a recent tech shift where you didn't lose something in the trade.

nebalee 1mo ago
I dont think it's that flawless. DVDs introduced some anti-consumer features to limit what you are allowed to do with your media that are now widespread, like copy-protection/drm/hdcp limiting your choice of playback devices and preventing you from creating backups, or enforced market segmentation through region-codes. Every VHS was rewritable, only special DVD were.

readthenotes1 1mo ago

Yes it is you getting grumpy, not older. My 95-year-old great granddad finds delight regularly, from his great sounding carbon fiber trombone (you try holding a full brass one as an nonogenarian!) to how much self-driving or AI has improved in 2025 to now.

47thpresident 1mo ago

Recently, I took an intercontinental flight, and the plane had complimentary Starlink internet and Live TV channels throughout the whole journey for all cabin classes. I know the technology has been around for a while but watching a World Cup game in real-time whilst soaring at 1000kmh/35,000ft over the Arabian desert sounds like science fiction decades ago. That's just one small example. I think that the hedonic treadmill is hitting people at a much higher rate than before.

ruicraveiro 29d ago

I think that this is enshittification seen from a different angle.

vrighter 29d ago

New tech nowadays usually means more restrictions on how I can use my own stuff. Oh I can't use the computing machine I have right in front of me right now? I have to rent your computing machines to do it (which you rent from someone else)?