Smartphones. Steve Jobs himself said that new tech like this will go through rapid improvement within the first 10 years of product development to then stall out.
A lot of the printing industry has peaked technologically. Many professional printers and cutting machines sold today are pretty much exactly the same as they were decades ago.
Books. Paper clips. Ballpoint pens: note that things have not been changed and revised for a long long time.
Silverware: the ergonomic design has been improved and perfected for things like spoons, forks, etc.
Standard analog clocks and watches: the precision has gone to -2/+2 sec a day by Rolex and Omega standard. You can’t really go beyond that and it ultimately still lose to quartz and atomic watch. Look up “Quartz Crisis”. This event alone almost killed the entire Swiss watch making industry in the 70s. People buy mechanical watches now for different reasons than timing precision.
there will be “new” websites that use AI that will make a new page for you or your browser will create the web page. or… you get to choose. right now, everyone mostly gets the same shit but there is no reason for it. web page code is relatively simple
of course “old” websites will exist as well as they have been
Headphones, more or less. There’s a reason why products like the Sennheiser HD600 or Beyerdynamic DT880 are still being made and bought/recommended by many, despite having been produced for decades.
There might still be slight improvements possible in the ultra high end sector (1000 USD and above), but a lot of new products are just different than older ones in terms of sound, and might provide improved build quality or lower impedances (so you don’t necessarily need a headphone amp anymore).
But overall, you can only make things sound so “good” or detailed/realistic before humans can’t notice the difference anymore. There are limits to human hearing, after all, and also to the physics of headphones – a headphone will never 100% replicate the speaker experience.
It could be argued that microphones have been there for a while.
yes, people are still making minor improvements to them over the time, but the basic design hasn’t changed much since the 3 major types (condenser, ribbon and dynamic) were introduced in the 1920s and 1930s.
I recently heard a demo of a fairly recently recorded performance using a Western Electric tube condenser mic from the 1930s, and there’s no doubt that it’s as good as anything out there that you could buy brand new today.
Pc screens (and TVs). Sure blacker blacks are nice but bigger monitors are not beneficial and since once you hit 33 inch, 4k, 120hertz you somewhat max out.
They can however get cheaper and maybe less latency for gaming but any upgrade over the specs I mentioned feels borderline unnoticeable.
Televisions. 4k, smart features, and OLED or local dimming where probably the last major improvements, and some of that goes back 10 years+ now. There are 8k sets, but they don’t see much traction because it’s kind of pointless. Not much native 8k content and people sit too far back to even notice the difference.
Gasoline engines: Even though modern gasoline engines are asymptotically approaching their theoretical maximum thermodynamic efficiency, they are still far less efficient than electric motors.
Phones. They’re already portable, we don’t want them smaller. Not sure what can be improved, most new models are just upgraded compatibility and cameras
Comments
Fax machines. Honestly, I still don’t know why they exist, but they peaked in the ‘90s and we’re all pretending like they didn’t
Steam engines. They did so long ago.
Tube amps.
apple lol
Potato masher.
Social media
iphones
Smartphones. Steve Jobs himself said that new tech like this will go through rapid improvement within the first 10 years of product development to then stall out.
He was spot on.
Muskets
/r/TIHI
Artificial intelligence
Elevators
A lot of the printing industry has peaked technologically. Many professional printers and cutting machines sold today are pretty much exactly the same as they were decades ago.
Dice,
They have found recognizable D6 dice from 5000 years ago.
https://nms.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-100-040-457-C&scache=5n3obpkbk7
The wheel
Books. Paper clips. Ballpoint pens: note that things have not been changed and revised for a long long time.
Silverware: the ergonomic design has been improved and perfected for things like spoons, forks, etc.
Standard analog clocks and watches: the precision has gone to -2/+2 sec a day by Rolex and Omega standard. You can’t really go beyond that and it ultimately still lose to quartz and atomic watch. Look up “Quartz Crisis”. This event alone almost killed the entire Swiss watch making industry in the 70s. People buy mechanical watches now for different reasons than timing precision.
Music.
Across the board, a song sounds better on vinyl.
A guitar tone sounds better through a tube amp.
Analog devices create a richer more organic feel.
Live musical performances are always a superior experience.
Toilets?
Zippers haven’t changed much since the early 1900s. I feel like if there were improvements to be made there, someone would have figured it out by now.
ai
WEBSITES
lots will change in the next few years
there will be “new” websites that use AI that will make a new page for you or your browser will create the web page. or… you get to choose. right now, everyone mostly gets the same shit but there is no reason for it. web page code is relatively simple
of course “old” websites will exist as well as they have been
Horse drawn buggies. They had their time. A long time ago.
Headphones, more or less. There’s a reason why products like the Sennheiser HD600 or Beyerdynamic DT880 are still being made and bought/recommended by many, despite having been produced for decades.
There might still be slight improvements possible in the ultra high end sector (1000 USD and above), but a lot of new products are just different than older ones in terms of sound, and might provide improved build quality or lower impedances (so you don’t necessarily need a headphone amp anymore).
But overall, you can only make things sound so “good” or detailed/realistic before humans can’t notice the difference anymore. There are limits to human hearing, after all, and also to the physics of headphones – a headphone will never 100% replicate the speaker experience.
Pencils are just about there. Every year I wait for the new pencil tech.
It could be argued that microphones have been there for a while.
yes, people are still making minor improvements to them over the time, but the basic design hasn’t changed much since the 3 major types (condenser, ribbon and dynamic) were introduced in the 1920s and 1930s.
I recently heard a demo of a fairly recently recorded performance using a Western Electric tube condenser mic from the 1930s, and there’s no doubt that it’s as good as anything out there that you could buy brand new today.
Electric meters
Toilets and firearms.
Toilet paper
Door handles
mousetrap?
Nail clipper
I don’t think Skyrim can be ported and re-released to anything else.
Apparently microwaves… Feels like they haven’t changed in 25 years.
Internal combustion engines have pretty much reached their peak.
Capitalism.
Washing Machines
Pc screens (and TVs). Sure blacker blacks are nice but bigger monitors are not beneficial and since once you hit 33 inch, 4k, 120hertz you somewhat max out.
They can however get cheaper and maybe less latency for gaming but any upgrade over the specs I mentioned feels borderline unnoticeable.
Printers seem to have. Like nothing about them is better than the old ones I had.
Wood burning stove!
Televisions. 4k, smart features, and OLED or local dimming where probably the last major improvements, and some of that goes back 10 years+ now. There are 8k sets, but they don’t see much traction because it’s kind of pointless. Not much native 8k content and people sit too far back to even notice the difference.
Pencils and pens. They will be the same in a thousand years
Audio recording
Gasoline engines: Even though modern gasoline engines are asymptotically approaching their theoretical maximum thermodynamic efficiency, they are still far less efficient than electric motors.
flint knapping, the compass and sextant, sun dial,
Gondolas
Candles
Reddit
Internal Combustion Engines.
Electric toothbrushes
Umbrellas
I can’t help wondering about metallurgy. Has that reached its peak?
Absolutely nothing. #hiddentechnologyDOTmil
The internet.
E-readers
phones. all just a black box now
AI because we shot straight past the peak and into the ether of destruction of humanity. It’s only downhill from here.
Large Language Models
The safety pin. It’s been the same for 176 years.
Ai
Hard drives
Pencil sharpeners. The basic mechanism found both in electric and hand-cranked pencil sharpeners dates back to the 1920s.
Apparently dentistry. Apart from implants, actually repairing teeth seems to be the same tech as two decades ago.
The Internet.
Every advancement these days is to make ads more annoying and make sure they get to you.
Umbrellas
Ladders i guess, pretty much unchanged.
Phones. They’re already portable, we don’t want them smaller. Not sure what can be improved, most new models are just upgraded compatibility and cameras
LLMs. The new models are hardly any improvement, and capabilities have pretty much stalled for a year or so now.
The pen. The Bic pen was perfection right out of the gate for its intended use case.
Facsimile
Fax, that golden age is gone.
Aviation
My hydraulics supply vendor has told me that hydraulic pumps and motors have pretty much plateaued for performance.
Mouse traps