What is your boomer opinion

I'm not subscribing to anything. If I buy something, it's fully functional, and it's mine. There is no ongoing relationship between me and the manufacturer. Done.

I mean, that's basically what FOSS is about.

Single player modes in games shouldn't require internet connection.

That fact that's considered a boomer take makes me sad

I don't want to have a subscription for everything. It used to be possible to pay a one-time fee for software and use it as long as I want. Now I have to pay a monthly fee and once I finish paying, I can't use the software anymore. And it's not like I constantly get updates for the software. Often it stays the same for months or years.

I understand that software has a price, but no way these prices are sometimes justified...

It was totally uncool to remove the headphone jack from my device, man.

I doubt you'll find anyone here that disagrees with you. I was going to get an older pixel but I got a 6 instead and I'm still grieving the loss of my headphone jack.
- At least we can get USB-C headphones and use the charging port as a headphone jack.

Cars shouldn't be loaded with user-facing technology. Bring back analog dashboards and buttons for climate control!

I just want to be able to adjust the stereo without looking away from the road. Is that too much to ask?
- Interesting fact: I just got a new ev (so a battery hooked up to a computer with wheels) - and it has buttons! It also has dials for sound and climate.
  Now to be fair it also takes interacting with a touchscreen to turn on the heated seats, but I'd say it's progress in the right direction.

GIVE ME BACK MY DAMN 3.5MM HEADPHONE JACK ON MY PHONE!!!

This but with SD cards

Music in restaurants and bars is just too loud. I know why the music is loud, but I am still going to shake my fist at it like Grandpa Simpson.

I’ve thought this since I was young. Background music? Cool, keep it quiet so we can talk.
Does this mean loud music is bad? No, I’ve been a put my head in the PA speakers metal head since I was young too. But I don’t expect a waiter to serve me then.
Beyond that, it’s a known problem that as you get older audio distractions become more severe, and I’m sure there’s a neurodivergent dimension to it too, so it’s one of those things where we are actively punishing people for wanting to be out and socialise. Also sure it’s one of those things where everyone thinks they have to do it but don’t
Same. It's getting worse over time too, I can hardly hear anything anyone is saying in restaurants and bars anymore.
I felt my inner boomer grow stronger after writing that.

Digital privacy is important, and it's important to be anonymous on the internet

I have three:

They don't make things like they used to
We don't need all these damned computers in everything
Modern music sounds like crap

I'm 17.

I think two out of those believes stem from survivorship bias. You think of old music and consumer products as superior because the only ones that "survived" are the good ones. No one remembers bad music from 50 years ago, and for every old thermos flask/blender/knife that you see around there are dozens that broke years ago.
- I say yes for the music one, maybe not for the first. There are literally different materials being used and increasingly optimised-for-profit-to-effort-ratio processes. Many things are just straight up made more cheaply because we have the technology to do that.
  Although for the music one, a relevant lyric comes to mind:
  Hip hop? Buddy, don't get me started
  So how do you get yourself charted?
  Kids love this stuff 'cause it's so new
  Put in a sample from a pop song too
  You've got a hit, how come it sold?
  The melody and it's 30 years old!

Smart tech in general is annoying and dumb. I want my TV to just be a tv with inputs, I don't need built in firmware and updates to shove ads in my face. I don't want my car to have a touch screen to adjust the A/C, just give me a knob or buttons.

I DO NOT WANT MY TV TO HAVE A FUCKING CAMERA OR A MICROPHONE
We need electric vehicles with the interiors and exteriors copied from consumer cars from the 90s.
- Like that Hyundai concept? That thing was rad. I'd drive the hell out of an EV that looks like an AE86.

Algorithms that try to suggest me content are universally bad, and all searches should provide results based solely on the terms, syntax, and language entered. Same with anything that tries to provide me content based on data harvested about my location or demographic.

I like that Lemmy and Masto don’t have those fucking algorithms. It’s a relief.
- What is your opinion on Bluesky? Their default feed is chronological, but they do have algorithms. They're actually moving towards custom algorithms, so you can build your own or use someone else's, delete, pin, reorder them. It's like different feeds. I like that implementation personally.

The internet was way better before it became a giant shopping mall.
Those cars that don't have the flecks in the paint look like children's toys.

Then, I have a couple that pre-date even boomers by many years 😅:

Handkerchiefs kick the shit out of paper tissues.
Cars have made the world a worse place.

Handkerchiefs are the bomb. I carry one everywhere I go (when I don't forget 🥲). Really feel like they could make a comeback with the right marketing.
!fuckcars@lemmy.ml
I miss the era when the web was just this

Cities are too car-oriented

I agree with the sentiment, but this feels like the least boomer opinion ngl

Things should be made to last and not be made to intentionally break after a short time.

how is that a boomer opinion?
- Many of the younger generations seem to accept that things don't last/break easily. I come from a time where there was a wiring diagram for the TV pasted on the inside back cover. Washing machines and other devices often had the schematics included. Repairing your stuff and keeping it running was the norm back then. Even if you couldn't, you probably had a neighbour who could. Planned obsolescence is a relatively new thing.

Sneaker culture is incredibly weird. Shoes made by children in China with a limited edition color are in such high demand that there are sites where people refresh F5 constantly hoping to have the honor to pay hundreds and hundreds for shoes that cost $7.50 to make. Then half of the time people won't even wear them outside, they'll put them in a bag and change shoes when they get to work or whatever. Or some might not even wear the shoes at all and just display them.

I'm an old soul in this sense. I love a quality goodyear welted shoe, and made in USA, UK, or Italy usually. An Allen Edmonds strandmok is a fantastic everyday shoe for me. I like to purchase nice things in general, use them, take care of them. I really hate throwaway culture as well.

Please nobody hate me for this, I'm a bit self conscious being an admin of my own instance and don't want to piss people off haha. If you're into gym shoe culture that's awesome. If I knew you in real life I'd probably make fun of you for a minute if I saw you walking outside in socks carrying your $400 limited edition sneakers, but then you can make fun of me for one of the thousands of things I do and it's all in good fun.

:) or 🙂 is nice and not passive-agressive

I hate QR code menus, just let me see the damn food options without squinting at my phone

CLI > GUI on PC.

What's CLI

As a person who works in tech and is an early adopter for almost every new gizmo out there, I feel that we were better off back in the day when stuff was all analog and things were done manually.

Sure it was inconvenient, but it made us experience the world more and actually interacted with real people. I have crappy social skills and I have seen the change in myself over the years. I get anxious when my phone rings now, as opposed to being excited back in the day.

This makes me think of a quote by Kurt Vonnegut:
“I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “Okay, I’ll send you the pages.” Then I go down the steps and my wife calls, “Where are you going?” “Well,” I say, “I’m going to buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in the closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
I really believe that part of the loneliness and lack of community many people feel nowadays can be attributed to automating everything for convenience. We miss out on these brief interactions and meaningless smalltalk, giving us less chance to practice our social skills in low-stakes situations. I see the change even in myself; in my college days I didn't really experience much social anxiety since I was always surrounded by people, but now I sometimes find a quick trip to the grocery store somewhat difficult. It's really troubling to think about, and it makes me long for the analog past.

let me see:

physical media is Just Better (cds, game cards, etc.)
the Internet is a technological dumpster fire
devices are too "smart" nowadays

Dating should go back to face to face meetings. People need to get out and see others more, just generally.

No thank you. I can barely stand hearing somebody through a wall, why would I want to see them too?
- Because dating hopefully takes place with individuums, to whom this limitation does not apply.

I don't think this is a boomer opinion but I got called a boomer for it once so maybe it is idk:

I think online dating is shit and I don't mean it in a "It doesn't work for me" kinda way but I believe it's objectively shit. In an ever faster world that demands more and more flexibility from people that also extends to dating. It introduces a certain arbitrariness to romantic and sexual relationships. We now have dating apps that you can use to scroll through potential partners like a furniture catalog. It reduces people to a commodity and I hate being confronted with that. I believe it could in combination with the realities of late stage combination harm our ability to establish deep and meaningful connections to people.

It's literally what my mom warned me off 20 years ago and now I believe she was right.

I use an iPod and physical media for most of my music

When contacting government or a service provider I want to call and talk to a human, dammit.

Phone bad.

Like they're objectively pretty useful but I find the experience of using one to just kinda suck and I avoid it as much as I can. I'd much much rather use a laptop or ideally my desktop if that's at all possible. No idea how some people manage so much time using their phones

Nobody should be able to profit off boring industries. Utility (power, water, telephony (which includes internet), banking, insurance.

Cap the profits at an arbitrary number that keeps up with inflation and allows for expanding business basic needs like staffing and inventory. Large investments should be reviewed and approved by regulating bodies and monies allocated and investments must be met with progress goals that achieve the completion of the project in full. None of this "Thanks for the monies, lol bye" bullshit.

Emphatically agree. I'm not really anti-free-market, but in the absence of informed consumer choice, all you have is de facto monopolies.
- It's worse - they are natural monopolies. I don't need to run fiber to my house from 3 different ISPs any more than I want to run pipes from 3 different water supply companies. Utilities like electricity are already regulated with price controls and some semblance of democratic oversight. It's time that internet hookups are too.

Do not share your name online.

Notifications fucking suck, if it isn't either my alarm or my grandma's emergency button, my phone ain't gonna do a damn thing to alert me.

We don't need a meeting for everything. It could have been an email.

Not meeting up with friends at a loud venue, I like to talk to them not try to shout over the music.

Alcohol is toxic, carcinogenic garbage and we'd be noticeably better off if everyone voluntarily stopped drinking it.

Anecdotally, this is a position I've seen held more often by young people than by boomers. Not sure what the statistics are exactly, but regardless it would be nice to see a cultural shift away from alcohol.
- I hold this opinion because I've watched family die from alcoholism, and I myself am a recovering alcoholic. It's a miserable way to go.

That OSes peaked with Windows XP.

I disagree, windows peaked with XP, Linux be popping off these days
- Peak was either Win2k or 7. XP was great, but only eventually. Most people forget what XP was like before SP2. And I was at the XP launch event lol

Google Docs Editors is inferior to any office productuvity suite, and it's overused in the professional world.

I don't want your fucking Sheets link. Email me the Excel file with _v1 at the end.

- I'm not the one who downvoted you (which clearly means the consensus is you're wrong, ratios be damned)
  You and I are now workplace enemies
  I hope you have a good day!

I do not like comic book movies.