Ask Lemmy

I'd say audio CDs, but those have been back on the upward trend since streaming and download services started getting hostile and people started wising up to that hostility, in other words, people want to own their music again and so started buying CDs again recently vs. having a streaming or download service randomly yank content they paid for from their libraries.

Cd roms. Network ports on laptops

Headphone jacks and Micro SD Card Readers.

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.

Search engines that work.

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.

Office phones.

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.

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 I just don't need it any more and the maps are about 10-15 years out of date.

Independent portable media players. Most of those functions have been susumed by phones.

disk players

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

Headphone jacks. They certainly still exist but every device I owned that made sounds had one in 2015, no longer the case

Plasma TVs, DVRs, DVD players