Things That Have Slowly Disappeared Over The Last Decade And No One Noticed

No matter which decade we predominately grew up in, we've all experienced a product disappearing that we loved while growing up.

The more surreal thing is when it feels like we're the only people who noticed. This amazing product disappeared off the shelves, and no one else even noticed!

Curious about others' experiences, Redditor Successful_Oil_3270 asked:

"What has gradually disappeared over the last ten years without people really noticing?"

Access To Good Cars

"The good old $800 beater car that would actually run and drive. Good luck finding anything nowadays that will run and drive for less than $3000."

- Current_Anybody8325

"And cars that ordinary people could fix! Now I have to sit in a room for 12 hours, waiting for them to work for five minutes on something I could have fixed with my eyes closed a decade ago."

- LovedAJacka**

Safe Spaces For Kids

"Online spaces for kids."

"When I was a child, we had several online places MADE for children. Every single children's TV channel had a website with games for kids, there were several online games geared towards children (like Club Penguin), etc. There were ample games you could buy and even discounts you could get at the school and public library."

"Now if you're a 10-yeaer-old, you either rot your brain with s**tty Youtube videos or you rot your brain with social media."

- Friendly_Exchange_15

Quality Over Quantity

"Quality clothing and furniture."

"Everything is plywood and polyester, even at the 'better' stores."

- Kittypie75

"I live in an area where people will put things that are still usable on the curb, and have been rescuing solid wood furniture when I can for years now. I got an antique china cabinet, a small drop-leaf table, dining room chairs, curio shelves, and a plant stand that way. Oak, maple, cherry, mahogany, pine."

"I don't think people know what they have or are just more interested in modern-looking things. Their loss! With a little cleaning, a bit of wood glue, and sometimes a refinishing, I end up with beautiful pieces that will probably outlive me."

"And I also get to learn new skills. I rescued an oak chair last week that needs a little love, and I might finally undertake learning some basic reupholstery skills. The seat has a leather pad, but the leather is brown, and it would look better with black."

"I also rescue wood that I can reuse to build new things. Wobbly-a** bookshelf? Take it apart, and build shelves that fit my space! Leaves from a dining room table? Take it home, clean it up, and reuse it! As long as it's solid wood and not particleboard, chipboard, or any other kind of s**tty pressboard, I'll make it useful again."

- iolarah

Career Advancement

"Mid-career jobs. 'The Great Flattening.' I feel like everyone I know either makes $22 an hour or $150K per year."

- Inevitable_Tone3021

"Also early-career jobs. Now everyone wants seniors and juniors. but with the pay of an entry-level job."

"The hyperinflation of titles is insane. I'm looking at companies and organizations with 80 staff, and 16 are 'Directors' or higher. Everyone wants the cool title... just not the responsibilities. So irritating!"

- michaelscottuiuc

"Yeah, to add to this, 'climbing the corporate ladder' has seemingly disappeared as well. I don't know a single one of my friends who has actually been promoted. If they ever move into a higher position, with better pay, it's because they switched companies."

"And then we get scrutinized by our parents for our lack of loyalty, lol."

- Upbear_Shock_6807

.....Time.

"Isn't it weird that ten years ago means 2015, and not 2010 or 2005?"

- plutopie

"Ten years ago is 1990, dude."

- Medium_Lab_200

A Simpler Time

"Just... coins on the sidewalk."

- Johannes4123

"There used to be this rocky part of a park that I could always find quarters in. Each time we visited, I would spend a lot of time rummaging through those rocks just to find a couple bucks worth of quarters. I made up stories in my head about how a truck full of quarters must have crashed there years ago, and they just never picked them all up."

"As I got older, I lost interest, but that place was always magical to me."

"Turns out my dad was dropping quarters in there when I wasn’t looking because he knew it made me happy/kept me busy."

- Governmentwatchlist

Independent Stores, Period.

"Small independent hardware stores. They used to be a small-town staple, especially in the Midwest. Almost everyone used to be 'The oldest business in town,' having been open since, like, 1895."

"Now, they're all mostly gone and your only alternative is a big-box hardware store or ordering on Amazon. It's incredibly depressing."

- bbbbbthatsfivebees

Real People Answering The Phone

"A real live person answering a business telephone. And if you don't believe me, press five to repeat this message."

- Nena902

"'Are you sure that you want to speak with an agent? I can probably assist you with whatever you need, says the AI voice that is trying to put my unusual request into one of five standardized buckets."

- lluewhynb

The Prize Inside

"Toys in cereal boxes."

- Roselily808

"The devolving of toys in cereal makes me so sad. My children do not get to experience it."

"I remember the toy was on the top outside the bag, but buggers would open the box and just take it. Then they put it in the bottom under the bag, but they’d take that too. Then the toy was wrapped in plastic and put somewhere in the actual cereal bag… and then no toys."

"I remember colour-changing spoons and the monkey linking toys, but they were from the Jungle Book… those were my faves."

- NearbyDark3737

The Backslide of Technology

"The convenience and accessibility promised by the internet of the 2000s and 2010s that is gradually taken away from us."

"I bought a season of a show on Amazon a few years back, and they seem to have somehow lost the rights to the original, so now I can only access the dubbed version, which I don’t like. The show now is only available on a streaming service that doesn’t exist in my country, so I got a VPN, only to find out that I can’t f**king pay for the streaming service without a credit card… So now I just ordered the box set again, like I would have done 15 years ago."

"It's not just the streamers, I remember when website loading times were THE topic when talking about browsers but now every website you open requires for you to take two minutes to close 5 legal questions and pop up, 'Do you want to register' horses**t, with the X‘s hidden in different spots every time."

"There are ads everywhere, and even if you buy the premium version of things, there are still more ads within the content, all for s**t you’d never buy."

"Places like YouTube remove functioning like and dislike features so that you can’t tell what videos you can simply skip."

"Google also seems to be less efficient than it was eight years ago, and finding anything online has become a chore."

"All new security measures they introduce just steal your time and life energy: you want to log into Netflix on your PC but you can’t, because it needs to be registered as a temporary device, you they send you a e mail but to open the email, they fist need you to enter a code, they send to your phone, which is in the other room, so you go get it and once you’ve entered the code and opened Netflix, you forgot what the f**k you even wanted to watch in the first place."

"Don’t get me started on all the f**king updates everything seemingly needs to do every other week…."

- LoscVanWein

24-Hour Locations

"24-hour businesses. The pandemic killed them, and it seems a lot of them aren’t coming back."

- gimp1615

"My local Planet Fitness closes at 7:00 PM on the weekends. 7:00 PM!!"

"God, I miss the 2:00 AM runs. Literally!"

- Ok-Stress-3570

"All the diners near me were 24/7 pre-pandemic. They're all 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM now. Diner food was always best at 1:00 AM."

- dizney_princess

More Portable Phones

"Small phones. Remember the pre-smartphone era when manufacturers raced to make phones smaller and smaller?"

"Then the iPhone was launched, and everyone thought it was too big at the time, but now even that looks tiny."

"Now even cheap smartphones are huge, like mini tablets and barely fit into pockets."

- Sudden_Hovercraft_56

"Reminds me of the 'Futurama' bit in the early 2000s (or 3000s)... 'What happened? Did you swallow your phone again?'"

- RecentTerrier

Physical Media

"Ownership. You pay a subscription. You can't fix what you own because it's proprietary. You can't buy outright."

"Our ownership of things has become a rental service, where they can break or completely remove what we purchased, without consent, at any time. Because it was in the terms of service."

- blackfox24

"I will defend physical media until my dying breath. It's awful that we let people trade our ownership in exchange for 'convenience.'"

"Also, I should clarify that in 'physical media,' I would include digital copies as well. Obviously not physical, but the concept still applies, I think."

- FaintestGem

Reasonable Fast Food Prices

"I miss the one dollar McChickens that were buy one get one free. But since I left high school in 2019, they're $2.50, BOGO for a dollar."

- HapppyTrails

"Seriously, it’s a joke. I coach a high school sport, and we feed our kids before every game, but none of the fast food restaurants in our area can actually feed a kid completely for the seven dollars we’re budgeted to give them. Last week, I got just a patty melt plus a drink and was shocked that it was $15."

- JugsNHugs

"I hadn’t eaten fast food in many years, and recently, a mom with three kids approached and asked me if I’d help her and her kids get some food. I was happy to oblige (and no, by the way they ate, they clearly weren't lying)."

"Total at Chick-fil-A came out to 94 dollars for a very reasonable amount of food; she didn't abuse my generosity one bit. I was floored. Still happy to oblige but floored nonetheless."

- Cheateau_de_Gateau

Open Minds And Growing Intellect

"In the least sarcastic sense possible, critical thinking and self-reflection. It’s really a struggle to engage with people these days who aren’t capable of putting their bias and personal beliefs aside to think big picture or critically about any issue."

"People just jump straight to personal insults, fallacies, and needing to feed their ego."

- Captain_Inept

"It’s so hard to be a teacher right now. They literally wait for the answer. In an open-book test the other day, I had a complaint that there wasn’t a page number. There were only about six it could have been on, but they didn’t 'want to look.'"

- Aggressive-Bit-2335

"It has been so long since I've had a deep, contemplative conversation with another human being. Probably fifteen-plus years. Even though I'm fortunate enough to still know some intelligent people, it seems like no one prioritizes time for this ever."

"I feel like the last person on Earth at times."

- Electronic-Ride-564

It's always such a bummer to realize that a product has absolutely disappeared from the shelves rather than just being sold out the last few times we went looking for it.

At the very least, it seems this conversation brought back some great memories for these REdditors, and sometimes, that's all we can really ask for from our favorite products.