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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Optical disks. It was almost a necessity on laptop to have an optical drive, now there's maybe one or two models out there that comes with one.
Even 10 years ago, disc drives seemed to be out of fashion. But if you laptop was 5 years old, it likely have one anyways.
I used a MacBook for 10 years that was one of the first models to come without a disc drive, it was a 2013 model.
I recall it being a bit ahead of the curve at the time, but it was a pretty fast curve before you really couldn't find a laptop with a disc drive anymore.
10 years ago was 2015. I went to buy a laptop from Dell in 2014, and they didn't have any models with a disc drive. I looked.
Search engines that work.
Even when you get to the actual website results you now have to wade through the AI slop sites
Maybe 1/100 people I see using headphones have wired headphones, certainly wasn't the case 10 years ago. Bluetooth technology and quality has come a long way.
I'd still have wires IF MY PHONE HAD A PLACE TO PLUG THEM IN.
I refuse to buy a phone without a headphone jack. I'm not sure if I even have a choice anymore tbh... Really I only use my phone for music and text/call. A dandy map if I need one, but not usually.
I compared a tonne of flagship smart phones not that long ago. The Sony Xperia series was the only one to still have an audio jack. They're quite expensive tho, so ended up with a phone sans the jack. I miss it dearly.
I could NOT be bothered with charging headphones daily.
A decent set of headphones will have an effectively all-day battery, and most people probably aren't listening to their headphones for 8+ hours a day.
I've had my headphones for about 7 years now and they still last for several hours on a single charge, and they support fast charging. If they're at 0%, I can plug them in for 10 minutes and they'll have about 2 hours worth of charge. I charge them maybe once a week with casual use.
Bluetooth isn't the technology that's come a long way, it's still the same shit it was decades ago. It's batteries.
That's just not true, Bluetooth codecs have improved sound quality DRAMATICALLY.
And I say this as someone who's not a big fan of wireless.
Office phones.
Sounds about right. Last time I had an office phone at my desk was 2021.
ITT: People not realizing 10 years ago was nearly the end of 2015 and listing technologies that were popular 20+ years ago.
Ubiquitous might be a stretch for 2015, but DVI cables come to mind.
while a straight dvi-d to dvi-d cable is quite uncommon to need today, i have used a bunch of hdmi to dvi-d adapter cables the last couple months to hook up new desktops to older displays that had vga and dvi-d inputs.
Dedicated GPS unit in your car
My parents gave me a GPS unit for my car about 20 years ago and I used it for the longest time. It was great help when driving in cities and big towns or locations I had never gone to before. We used it all the time and I think I updated the maps ... I think it was a Garmin device ... I think I updated the maps 2 or 3 times over the years. Then it went unsupported but I kept using it for the longest time.
Then I started buying better smartphones and my phone just eventually replaced the GPS unit.
I still have it and it still works and the battery on it is still good ... I just don't need it any more and the maps are about 10-15 years out of date.
I can say the same about my ipod. I used it everyday for the longest time until I realized I can put a 126gb micro sd card in my phone which is more than double what my ipod had. Now it's sitting in a box somewhere in my closet. Probably still works too.
It's a shame modern phones have been losing both micro SD card slots and headphone jacks and often don't have a substantial amount of storage. Still better than carrying multiple devices, however.
Independent portable media players. Most of those functions have been susumed by phones.
Which makes me frustrated that all the manufacturers have gotten too cheap to toss a miniscule DAC and headphone jack in phones anymore.
Headphone jack and micro SD cards and the biggest losses for me.
I don't think it's about them being cheap, it's that they want to sell you the matching wireless headset
URL shorteners, AMP? Micro USB?
Edit:
Thinking of things that weren’t made obsolete but just unprofitable…
Physical menus at restaurants, useful search results, human support staff, non-subscription software, open APIs, useful product reviews
I hate with a burning passion QR code scan menus.
I saw on Kitchen Nightmares one time where the QR code pointed to http://localhost/ haha
Haven't watched such an episode yet, but the developer likely said “Works fine on my machine!”, LOL.
Headphone jacks. They certainly still exist but every device I owned that made sounds had one in 2015, no longer the case
They weren't quite ubiquitous anymore, but looking for a payphone wasn't a sign of someone being a time traveler. The last one near me hung on until a couple years ago.
I don't eat at QR code restaurants.
If you don't have a menu, I don't pay.
Portable handhelds, I mean form factors like the PSP and Nintendo DS. The downside of the console/handheld convergence is that the handhelds need pretty big screens.
Tablets? Those seem to have really fallen out of fashion and have been replaced with regular smartphones becoming quite a lot bigger.
I recently got a tablet so I could take handwritten notes during meetings. I thought I'd use it for a bunch of other stuff but I do not.
Not to mention, the ~~OCR handwriting recognition~~ my handwriting is really bad.
10 years isn't far enough in the past. I can't think of a single thing ubiquitous to every day living that doesn't still exist in the same capacity now. 2025 is barely different from 2015.
I am sure there might be plenty of niche or specialized tech that fits. But nothing that was widespread and now just gone.
Thumb drives were a form of currency ten years ago. I go months without using one now, and even then it’s installing an OS for a RPi.
I have an external SSD for backups, but not for sneakernet.
In 2015, UK consumers spent approximately £1.5 billion on physical entertainment media, including DVDs, Blu-rays, and CDs.
By 2025, that figure has plummeted to under £400 million, with DVDs and Blu-rays now representing less than 10% of total video spend.
In 2015, streaming was growing but still secondary. Netflix had around 5 million UK subscribers, and Spotify Premium was under 2 million.
By 2025, streaming dominates:
2015: Physical Media ~£1.5 billion, Streaming ~£500 million
2025: Physical Media <£400 million, Streaming >£2.5 billion
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/multi-sector/media-nations/2025/media-nations-2025-uk-report.pdf
https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/Industries/tmt/research/digital-consumer-trends.html
Cd roms. Network ports on laptops
