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I'm wondering what examples people can come up with. I realise what is considered as a showstopping or serious disadvantage might be a very personal view.
Some thoughts from me to get started, with some of the disadvantages.
Products:
Cadbury Chocolate (taste is not what I remember which started with the 100g Dairy Milk bars)
Nitromors paint stripper (not as effective as I remember)
Cars: No good equivalent to some older models (VW Sharan), move to touchscreen from switches, sometimes less security with remote unlocking, computer control that can stop you driving the car (for example if you run out of AddBlue)
Roses Chocolates: individuality all gone leaving bland rounded shapes and wrappers
General Shrinkflation (no it does not save me money or the environment to have to buy smaller items more often)
Laptops: limited connections now (USB/HDMI ...), some improvment with multi-functional USB-C.
Stanley tape measures: the metal ones were great
Concorde (not that I ever flew on it but it was quick and there is no equivalent)
Services:
Railway return tickets (I used to buy off-peak returns and these are no longer available on routes I use)
Digital Phone (fail in power-cuts, no local dialing)
Digital TV over IP or streaming for public broadcast: required internet costs, reliability, no support of time-shifting recording
Smart Meters (important features not controllable by consumer: remote power cut off, data upload frequencey, non-future proof models)
Local public transport: getting harder and harder to get paper tickets (or even a physical card) in various cities around the world, even for multi-day tickets
Customer service hiding behind impenetrable telephone menus ("did you know you could visit our website..."), online support flows trying as hard as possilble to hide proper telephone contact deatils and AI bots only respoding to "typical" support scenarios.
Indeed, I think a lot of degreasing products used to contain carbon tetrachloride, which was not only hazardous to the user but also wasn't doing the ozone layer any good.
Car parks that require you to download a dodgy app in order to pay, and potentially give your account details to the parking company (or scammers!).
The government has mandated that all new EV chargers must offer contactless card payments as an alternative to the multitude of apps. The same should apply to any publicly owned cars parks and private ones over a (small) number of spaces.
I can understand operators moving away from cash, but there should always be a way of avoiding use of a smartphone, with its attendant risk of scams. See also the many scam QR codes on parking signs. Cash is foolproof and low risk!
Not very long ago, if you applied the product to paint guess what - it stripped it.
The current product has no effect on a painted surface at all. Even if you drop a small sample of something painted into the container comes in, it has no effect on the paint.
Car parks that require you to download a dodgy app in order to pay, and potentially give your account details to the parking company (or scammers!).
The government has mandated that all new EV chargers must offer contactless card payments as an alternative to the multitude of apps. The same should apply to any publicly owned cars parks and private ones over a (small) number of spaces.
I can understand operators moving away from cash, but there should always be a way of avoiding use of a smartphone, with its attendant risk of scams. See also the many scam QR codes on parking signs. Cash is foolproof and low risk!
I hate this so much.... car parks that only allow payment by app should be outlawed this very day. I've never been caught out (scammed) by one because I try to check online first, but it's ridiculous this is allowed. I can understand them moving on from cash, but every car park should be forced to accept payment by debit/credit card on site.
So many examples to suggest here.... My own irritation are cars that have a digital screen, often ridiculously large, replacing proper control buttons. Surely these screens are less safe to operate when moving, not to mention more time consuming, than a simple button? Quite rightly, using a phone whilst driving is illegal, I don't know what the difference is?
This is a good one. Their redesign is a disaster. Initially they were very allergic to colour but they've relented a tiny bit.
And in the hourly, my eyes are drawn more to the hour and the wind speed than the temperature. Can't believe they got rid of the colour scale based on the temperature
The UV index is a horizontal scale which is missing the mark. If you were to use your hands when talking to represent UV being off the charts, you would wave your hand high about your head (vertical max) not way off to the side of your hips
Microsoft Office 365 gets a special mention. Constant shoving of updates and copilot down your throat, yet on my work pc the copy and paste function 9/10 times doesn't work in Word or Excel after some arbitrary update.
Not really worse but a worse aspect I guess. I got a new fridge last week as the old one stopped working the compressor seems more quiet or less noticeable though I think the fan noise is a bit more noticeable which is apparently normal for new model fridges as they use different types of compressors or they work in a different way according to quick google research.
I found the manual with the new fridge worse as it’s much smaller and lacks diagrams. I didn’t order the last fridge however they had one person move out the old by hand without a trolley or anything and a younger guy being the new fridge with a trolley, forgotten the proper name. No one helped unbox the fridge or anything. I did it myself but I’m sure the old fridge would have been unboxed by delivery as it was just my mum in the house and my sister who was still a kid when the old fridge was new.
I think customer service seems worse compared to the past.
Argos delivery also seems a bit worse. I just discovered they started charging for return collections, fair enough, but there are times when I deliver with them and it’s cancelled then confusing information is sent that the thing I ordered has been returned, without me selecting that option, but after it’s randomly is delivered 5 days later. Or repeated cancellations of certain delivery orders. It’s not too bad but compared to Amazon it’s poor. I feel like Amazons delivery process can feel stressful because deliveries are stressful if you are ordering a lot but aren’t home and then the mess of packaging. But overall Amazons delivery service is much more painless or frictionless compared to Argos. And, for returns, it’s like they don’t care as much about refunds and stuff, which makes it feel more pleasant as it’s not as strict. Although Amazon deliveries sometimes are carelessly left outside the house, never happens with Argos for me. I think Argos delivery use to be quicker a few years ago and more reliable.
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I agree and the worse thing is that I use wired and the adapter. I have to be careful choosing a headphone adapter as some of them seem to get damaged easily. The wired headphones however last longer than the Bluetooth ones I had, no interference, apart from if the adapter breaks, and less maintenance needed.
I don’t mind the ai results though I suppose they might increase misinformation.
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I'm wondering what examples people can come up with. I realise what is considered as a showstopping or serious disadvantage might be a very personal view.
Some thoughts from me to get started, with some of the disadvantages.
Products:
Cadbury Chocolate (taste is not what I remember which started with the 100g Dairy Milk bars)
Nitromors paint stripper (not as effective as I remember)
Cars: No good equivalent to some older models (VW Sharan), move to touchscreen from switches, sometimes less security with remote unlocking, computer control that can stop you driving the car (for example if you run out of AddBlue)
Roses Chocolates: individuality all gone leaving bland rounded shapes and wrappers
General Shrinkflation (no it does not save me money or the environment to have to buy smaller items more often)
Laptops: limited connections now (USB/HDMI ...), some improvment with multi-functional USB-C.
Stanley tape measures: the metal ones were great
Concorde (not that I ever flew on it but it was quick and there is no equivalent)
Services:
Railway return tickets (I used to buy off-peak returns and these are no longer available on routes I use)
Digital Phone (fail in power-cuts, no local dialing)
Digital TV over IP or streaming for public broadcast: required internet costs, reliability, no support of time-shifting recording
Smart Meters (important features not controllable by consumer: remote power cut off, data upload frequencey, non-future proof models)
Local public transport: getting harder and harder to get paper tickets (or even a physical card) in various cities around the world, even for multi-day tickets
Customer service hiding behind impenetrable telephone menus ("did you know you could visit our website..."), online support flows trying as hard as possilble to hide proper telephone contact deatils and AI bots only respoding to "typical" support scenarios.
I disagree with the Concorde being better. It was faster but I’ve heard planes from that era were much louder and planes use to crash more, although Concorde didn’t crash much.
Subscription services and making computer programs from versions you can buy into never ending subscription services.
I've started to pull back from using the internet. The amount of 'in your face' advertising has become too excessive and I only really use it now for a couple of news websites, this forum, Press Reader, internet shopping and travel information.
I truly believe that AI and Social Media will become a plague on society with disastrous consequences to follow.
This would be enough. There are not many things I can think of where improvements in service have been made. I suspect a lot of it is cost-cutting and/or extra means to profiteer (especially by making consumers by replacements more often).
More specifically several TOC's first class services are poorer than in decades gone by, they have a much more limited selection of complimentary snacks, while for those that offer meals likewise.
Cars: No good equivalent to some older models (VW Sharan), move to touchscreen from switches, sometimes less security with remote unlocking, computer control that can stop you driving the car (for example if you run out of AddBlue)
You could apply this more widely to most goods where simple mechanics have been replaced by lots of electronics and software. It's more things that can go wrong and the increase in service quality is either no better or only marginally better, but not enough to justify it going wrong more often. Apparently white goods in particular is far inferior in lifespan now than a few decades ago.
You beat me to it. The first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread.
The new version has far less information visible on screen without having to scroll to find it, and that which is there isn't at all clear.
I just can't get on with it, the version being replaced was as good as you could hope for.
I've responded to feedback request several times; "Sadly someone thought this was a good idea, and even worse, someone else believed them".
But it's not only the Met Office who have cheapened their websites. I've found the same with online banking, anyone else think that the new "improved" Nationwide website is as big a step backwards as I do?
Google Play Store no longer has the search bar on the front page. How stupid is that? There is zero chance that I am interested in anything they are advertising. One of many unnecessary added clicks that I find everywhere.
But it's not only the Met Office who have cheapened their websites. I've found the same with online banking, anyone else think that the new "improved" Nationwide website is as big a step backwards as I do?
Yes this is a big issue for me as well. There are several other instances of software/websites where users try to hold onto the old version for as long as possible where possible.
Yup agree with you. All went downhill when they released that awful new branding that looks almost sinister . I call them a bank all the time now, not a building society.
The old website used to have an amazing messaging feature which was a direct line to really knowledgeable empowered staff but they took it away ages ago. The new website and app designs are a dumbing down we see so often with the excuse it's "mobile friendly"
You beat me to it. The first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread.
The new version has far less information visible on screen without having to scroll to find it, and that which is there isn't at all clear.
I just can't get on with it, the version being replaced was as good as you could hope for.
I'm baffled why a redesign was thought to be a good thing anyway. Surely the USP of a weather website is accuracy not fancy graphics? I can't imagine anyone thinking "the Met Office is more accurate but I use (random alternative) because I like their colours better".
But it follows the example of the National Rail journey planner revamp, in showing less information and wasting screen space. My theory is that the whizz kids who code these things use giant hi-res screens and simply don't realise (or don't care) that they've actually made their product more awkward to use.
They only make the spray now and it's far insuperior I find.
I haven't tried this knock-off version called 'Pink Stuff' yet mind.
Any time I pass an old DIY shop, or a chandlers on canals, I pop in hoping they might have a dusty pink Windolene bottle at the back of a shelf somewhere. No such luck!
Well, it works for me, see example below.
Images show Google search results for "baked beans" - including AI summary, and "baked beans -ai" - without AI summary.
Not very long ago, if you applied the product to paint guess what - it stripped it.
The current product has no effect on a painted surface at all. Even if you drop a small sample of something painted into the container comes in, it has no effect on the paint.
I'm not sure why it works, but number 4 son leaves his warhammer/plastic painted figures in dettol for a period of time and that strips/softens the paint sufficiently so that he just needs an old toothbrush to remove the paint
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