14th
Things that feel outdated but sadly aren’t
Discs of all types. Why do I need to take this plastic disc out of this plastic case and insert it into this complex, loud, clunky mechanical drive mechanism every time I want to use it instead of copying it to a hard drive once or just downloading it in the first place?
DVD menus. Why do I have to wait through this crap that I can’t skip? Why was one of the most successful consumer-electronics technologies in history designed to be so hostile toward consumers? I can hit Play on the Apple TV or the Netflix 360 thing and it just plays. Why is the more expensive product, the DVD, giving me a worse experience? (And from what I understand, Blu-Ray is no better.)
Retail stores. The big markup used to be justifiable because getting things at near-wholesale prices was nearly impossible for individuals and the stores would have knowledgeable salespeople to answer questions and help you make a good choice. Now I can get nearly everything I buy from online vendors for less money whenever I want, and I’m not missing anything, because the salespeople in the stores are now just burnt out college kids who don’t give a shit about anything, don’t know a thing about whatever they’re selling, and certainly can’t possibly help me with anything.
Retail stores: As soon as the distribution system in the US gets as good as what we have in Japan… which sounds impossible, I will migrage over to online shopping. A while ago I was going to order a DVD amazon.com had in stock, and they said it will take approximately 9 days to deliver. I assumed that means it will tame somewhere between 9 days to 2 weeks. I just drove to a store. In Japan, I would usually have it the next day. Or maybe amazon just sucks in the US??
