Modern 'Conveniences' That Actually Make Life Harder

Making life simpler...

That is always the goal, right?

Modernize this, eliminate that!

All so the everyday can be more convenient.

How are those plans going?

I have to say, some of the advancements in simplicity haven't really done much to delete stress.

In fact, some modern assistance has hindered the everyday life quite drastically.

Or maybe I'm just being grumpy and nostalgic.

Let's take a look at the list.

Redditor BisonNo9004 wanted to discuss some of the things that were designed to make life simpler, but the results backfired, so they asked:

"What's a 'modern convenience' that actually made your life harder?"

Damn It!!

"Just let me use the website! I hate having to download a damn app for everything."

- slitherfang98

"Why do I need an account to use your website? It’s just a one-time service."

"Also, I called customer service because your website is not user-friendly and does not have the services I am calling about. Stop asking me to hang up and go to the website."

- 9atesirben

Crypto Blockchain GIF by Digital PratikGiphy

Dried Up

"My tumble dryer has a dozen presets for every kind of clothing (shirts/jeans/sports/silk/etc) but absolutely nothing on the machine or in the manual indicates temperature, which is literally a universal pictograph written on every item to tell you how to dry it."

"Also, I just spent a couple of hours setting up my new TV. Used to be you plugged it in, turned it on, and it worked."

- HonoraryCanadian

"My dryer has a feature where it will turn itself off when it deems your clothes to be dry. Even if I say 40 minutes, if it thinks my clothes are dry after one minute, it will turn off and start playing the 'your clothes are ready' song."

- natsugrayerza

CODED

"Car park apps. Just f**king let me pay without downloading an app, creating an account, trying to figure out what code this car park, and no I'm not going to let you use my location."

- basicissueredditor

"The most scammy part about these is that the meter doesn't tell you how much time you have left, just the app does. So if you prepaid and leave early (and have 30 minutes left on the meter), someone coming to use the spot right after you will pay to use the spot. So 2 people are paying for the spot simultaneously without knowing, and the company profits more. I wouldn't be surprised if they intentionally designed it that way."

- Defiant-Lock9496

I'll Buy Dumb

"Everything being 'smart.'"

"Things have become so smart that they’ve gone full circle and are now just dumb and unusable."

- brownhornet1000

"This. I won't buy anything 'smart' unless that functionality can be disabled and isn't essential to using it. Even ignoring how annoying it is, the software inevitably gets abandoned sooner or later, or worse they start finding a way to shove ads into it. Or it's a security threat."

"Proprietary bulls**t in general on long-lived appliances too."

"I've considered setting up controllable lights a few times, but if I do it'll be something compatible with HomeAssistant (open source project I can run on a pi)."

Walk-In

"Today I had to go to the urgent care. I was the only one there. They could have just taken my ID and insurance and had a practitioner see me. But the only way to claim an appointment- even by walk-in - was by scanning a QR to register. Except that they were on the first floor of a big building, and mobile service wasn't great."

"So I went on their Wi-Fi, but their website was down. So they had to print out paper forms that they had done away with, except their Internet was also down. So they had me write my information on the back of some receipt paper, and finally saw me. But they couldn't bill my insurance, because their system was down."

"And then they knew they had to send my Rx to a Walgreens, but couldn't because their system was down. So they called the closest Walgreens they could find for my RX, but it was actually 30 minutes away because their system was down. So I asked for a paper RX order and went to the Walgreens next door, who had to contact the Walgreens 30 minutes away to get the RX transferred because the system was down at the urgent care."

"But they couldn't verify the RX being transferred because the system was down at the urgent care."

- DangerSwan33

Tangible Things

"Not being able to physically own a copy of a video game anymore. Even if you have the disc, you still have to download the game. You’re paying for the privilege to play the game, not the actual game itself."

- OrganicLFMilk

90s guillaume kurkdjian GIFGiphy

How do I Pay?

"Subscription based payments."

- innocent_pig

"Those were never intended to be convenient or better. They were always just to make the company substantially more money."

- FoxyWheels

"I’ve been hating this about news sources lately. You can’t find a physical paper many places anymore, and so many online articles are paywalled. If I see an article I’m interest in reading I don’t want to subscribe to pay monthly for a single article. Remember when you could just buy a paper for 25-50¢ if a headline caught your attention? Or just read it without buying it while in a cafe?"

- mountainmamapajama

FIDDLING!

"Touch screens. I prefer buttons."

- Sea_Suggestion9424

"This is especially annoying for cars. After driving a friend's car with a touchscreen for radio and volume control, I decided that I will NEVER buy a car that doesn't at least use physical buttons for volume control."

"If I'm driving 60+ mph on the freeway, I AIN'T GOT NO TIME TO BE FIDDLING WITH A TOUCHSCREEN TO ADJUST THE VOLUME!!"

- SCVGoodT0GoSir

I don't carry...

"Constantly being available to contact."

- thisremindsmeofbacon

"I stopped carrying a cell phone altogether a few years ago. It was disconcerting at first, but I quickly realized how much better I felt when I wasn't constantly looking at my phone."

"I bought a tablet with full phone functionality and moved my sim card over. I take it with me on longer road trips and plane rides, but the rest of the time it just sits on the charger on my nightstand."

"The ability to just disconnect has been life-changing. Not to mention the entertainment value of the looks you'll get when you tell people, 'Oh, I don't carry a phone..'"

- NBAccount

Mechanics

"This is sorta a tough one for me."

"I love my prosthetic legs to some extent, but in order to use them properly and adjust settings, I need my phone & the app. There are definitely some benefits, but there would also be a huge downside if my phone wasn't available. Also, power outage? Charging it would come down to a generator as well as sometimes software problems. Stuck on an island? I'm screwed."

"I still have my very first prosthetic (3R60) which is purely mechanical that I take with me on every single trip in case there are power issues. In a month I'm going to Disney World and taking 3 knees with me: my everyday one, my water knee & that 3R60 Incase anything happens."

"Love all the new tech, but it could get you into trouble. My old legs were able to be adjusted with a 4mm Allen wrench; even one of them that had a microprocessor could still be manually adjusted. Unfortunately, no more of that."

"Back in 2012, I took my family on a Norwegian Fjord cruise for a week; the following week was with our Norge family. My microprocessor knee died the VERY FIRST DAY of the cruise. Thankfully, I had my mechanical knee as backup. It would've been easier with the other knee, but thankfully, I knew how to walk with the first one."

- MonoPodding

OneDrive

"Windows automatically saving all of my files to OneDrive. I like to think I'm somewhat tech-savvy, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to stop it from happening. Recently moved a bunch of MP4-files from a USB to my PC then a short while later my e-mail stopped working because the OneDrive storage was full due to the files I thought I saved locally."

- furrymittens

"I don't think Windows doing that automatically was meant to be convenience so much as pushing OneDrive on people who would never opt in if given the choice."

- Ruining_Ur_Synths

Wasting Time

"The whole applying for jobs online situation... I only work in hospitality and low-wage jobs. I miss the days of walking round town with my CV printed out, where I could talk to a manager about a vacancy, instead of wasting endless time filling out the same details for jobs and often silly questionnaires when I'll often hear nothing back at all."

- kushqt420

Ready to Order

"Scanning QR code to access the menu and order the food."

- NoDish1669

"Worse, posting a QR code in an online post. Why isn't it just a link? It's on my phone screen, and I don't have a camera to take a picture of my phone screen."

- ILikeLenexa

Hungry Breakfast Sandwich GIF by Pudgy PenguinsGiphy

Helpful?

"I don't know about made my life harder, but search engines 'correcting' your search if they think you misspelled a word is a thorn in my side. The suggestions they give if they think you misspelled something are fine, it's when they start deciding 'no, this is what you meant' without you saying so and overriding the search results that it becomes an inconvenience."

"As someone who's often looking up non-English (well, non-Modern English) words, it's annoying. Stop being 'helpful' and let me search for the thing I'm searching for."

- TheSaltyBrushtail

Storage Wars

"Cloud services. I have my own portable drives, not every free version of a cloud service has limited cloud storage, so it fills up and they can compel you to pay. Less tech-savvy people just bite the bullet often. But I had iCloud tell me that my solution was to copy it to my PC, and clear it out. Then I go to my phone, and my photos are all gone. I never asked to delete them from my phone!"

- YossiTheWizard

I've never understood the cloud.

Am I in it now?

It saves everything automatically, right?

I'll never know.

What other "helpful" advancements should be listed?