R.I.P.com

Inspired by this thread over at Slashdot, here's some tech I miss or expect to start missing soon.

#1. Napster. There was nothing like Napster before, and sadly, nothing since. I knew people who bought computers or upgraded their internet connections just to use Napster on them. It was, without a doubt, THE killer app. And I will testify to my dying day: I purchased more CDs because of Napster than I ever did before.

I know other P2Ps have come along since, but none have the kind of depth of material Napster did. It didn't matter how obscure your musical tastes were, someone on Napster had it. While I like the flexibility of some of the newer P2Ps for their broad range of downloadables like apps, pdfs and movies, none have touched the music geek in me like Napster did.

#2. Video Game Cartridges. I was a Nintendo junkie growing up, and there was nothing like blowing the shit out of the contacts on your old game cartridges :D. But seriously, while I dig a nice cinematic as much as the next guy, I hate load times. Load times are the Antichrist. Load times and the general complexity of newer game controllers (I took DEX as my drop stat) have pretty much kept me away from the latest systems. I know Nintendo famously failed to keep cartridge tech alive with the death of the N64, but I like to think that had more to do with the sucky games being coded onto them than the cartridges themselves.

Plus, those cartridges had low storage capabilities that just couldn't compete with how much a CD-ROM would hold, but look at what today's flash drives can hold: a whole gigabyte on something that fits on a keychain. Just ponder what kind of sick games you could put on something the size of a small cartridge nowadays with no load times.

#3. Film Cameras. They're not dead yet, but they're circling the drain. Even as digital photography approaches maximum market penetration, there will still be at the very least a niche market for film amongst artists (the way the phonograph has been kept alive by turntablists).

I know I'm alone on this one, and even I'm of two minds on it. I like digital, and being able to sit at your computer and do whatever you want to your own image never gets old. Even picture quality, which film used to have all over digital, doesn't mean as much anymore. For me, it boils down to romantic and aesthetic feel. As an old photo lab guy, there's just something about working with film that's indescribable. To this day, even in the day and age of 5+ megapixel photorealistic digital images, I can still tell the difference between a 35mm and digital.

Plus, everytime I look at my mom's digital camera and see the year-old images on there because she still hasn't figured out how to offload them, I think "Here's someone who wasn't helped by ditching 35mm".

4. Barbers. Okay, I know barbers aren't technology per se, but the disappearance of the barber from the American landscape is nonetheless troubling. Part of the overall wussification of our society has involved men now going to "hairstylists" to get "hairstyles". Listen: real men have their hair CUT (not styled) by fellow MEN named Art or Tony (or possibly Bill), who wear smocks and have revolving poles outside their front door, a perm machine which has NEVER been used, a big jar of blue disinfectant goo and a collection of nudie mags within arm's reach. Anything else is a commie plot more insidious than flouridation.