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I used to download WoW updates at 50~~0~~ KB/s back in like 2006, I'd quite often start them in the morning before going to school cause they'd take so long, now I have gigabit internet, even 100 megabit internet would have blown peoples minds back then
Edit: thinking about it it probably 50 - 100 KB/s not 500, still nothing compared to today though
I used to ask my dad to download Total Annihilation maps and units at work because his business had a dual ISDN line back when we were still on 28.8k dial up
There were a couple of MB each so came back on spanned floppy disks
I just found out that those motherfuckers updated the [Space Jam website](https://www.spacejam.com/2021/)
That was like grade II listed internet architecture
They replaced the logo for the new one, which isn’t a huge deal but a change nonetheless. Otherwise it does look the same.
Edit: Oh and the domain now redirects to warner bros. The OG site design is now under https://www.spacejam.com/2021/.
The more you look the more they've updated it to reflect the new film.
That's rookie numbers. I remember having to try several times to download With or Without You by U2, because my modem would cut me off after 1hr59. So if it took two hours or longer, no luck.
You were lucky! When I first used the internet way back in the late 80s it took several minutes just to get a really low Res image of some blurry boobs. A whole evening and you'd see like 8.
Not 8 women.
(And sorry for saying that I downloaded porn photos, but I was a teenage boy and I've learnt better since then. Now it's all hi res movies and no downloads required!)
Internet speeds have grown with technological advances in infrastructure the world over. Compared to many developed nations we aren't doing that well anymore.
At position 48 in [Wiki's list by speed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_Internet_connection_speeds) we are at position 48 with countries like Vietnam, Peru and Romania doing somewhat better than us.
Same sex Civil partnerships were a thing about 20 years ago which is legally very similar.
It’s because marriage is/was seen as a religious ceremony that it took longer to get the support for changing that too.
The only difference in regards to protections is that Civil Partnerships may not be recognised by certain foreign countries.
Both divorces and civil partnerships have the same rules for ending them, they both afford the same benefits and obligations. Inheritance, child custody, tax benefits etc. are all identical.
The biggest difference is the process, you're not allowed to have any religious aspects when you sign a civil partnership (though you can arrange something afterwards if you want.)
I'm curious what differences *you* think there are that makes civil partnerships so bad compared to marriage.
I was under the impression that adultery was not legal grounds for end a civil partnership, whereas it was legal grounds for divorce. Obviously now these things are non-fault so this is irrelevant.
True, but in fairness adultery was legally defined as sex between a man and a woman. When gay marriage was first legalised a married couple, straight or gay, couldn't divorce because of same sex adultery.
But as you say, No Fault Divorce has done away with all of that. Shocking that something like that was only introduced in 2022 though.
That it took so long really shows what a brutal and primitive society we are. It was also only in this century that gay people were allowed to serve openly in the uk military and teachers were allowed to mention homosexuality in schools.
I hope we can look back at the way certain people are treating trans people like this one day.
It was only twenty odd years ago that MPs were openly saying that gay marriage would lead to bestiality, and there was this same idea that all gay people were pedophiles and sexual deviants and it wasn't safe to have your kids near them.
It's maddening seeing the exact same rhetoric being used for trans people and people lapping it up.
And you could be fired for being gay. One reason I became a civil servant was that the civil service (and a few other employers) banned discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, around 2000.
Gay rights have gotten better, much better.
Unfortunately, trans rights are getting worse and worse.
Same shit, targeting a different demographic.
To come here and see that people say gay rights as being something we can't see ourselves going back on is reassuring, I hope to hear similar things about trans rights in 20 years.
Trans is a pretty new thing ..well its obviously not NEW but for some reason there's ALOT more trans people now than there ever has been, if you went back 10 years it was almost unheard of. So people see it as more of a fad.
>but for some reason
The reason is enhanced equality for trans people. The Equality Act in 2010 making it unlawful to discriminate against trans people made it so less people had to make the difficult choice of "well if I come out as trans I'll probably lose my job". As we saw positive portrayals of trans people in the media (such as Laverne Cox in Orange is the new Black or youtubers like Contrapoints) for the first time after decades of films painting trans women as a laughing stock or dangerous, people started to understand more that trans people were regular people deserving of kindness. This made trans people less scared that coming out would mean their friends and family members no longer talking to them. And as social media and the internet have developed, trans people have been able to find community with each other so that fear of being alone if your family abandons you is mitigated slightly by knowing you have people to turn to. When section 28 was overturned LGBT+ charities like Schools Out worked hard to reassure schools it was good to teach young people what LGBT+ means, governments included teaching LGBT in the secondary national curriculum, and we had our first generation of young people being taught what trans means in schools and it not being stigmatised. So more trans young people go "oh wow that's the word for how I've been feeling and didn't know why". Instead of thinking they're broken and feeling ashamed they might feel safe to tell a teacher or their parents.
So much work has been done by the LGBT+ rights movement to make society more accepting of trans people. As that happens, more trans people feel safe and supported to come out.
We used to have a lot less people coming out as gay in the past too. More equality means more gays!
Yes! My husband was recently diagnosed with Leukaemia. We were terrified for a couple of weeks, until we were told all he has to do is take a daily tablet with zero side effects. The drug was developed about 20 years ago.
We are SO grateful for scientific researchers and TKIs!
I was on TKI's for a decade and had numerous side effects. It isn't a patch on the various treatments/courses needed for AML etc but isn't a walk in the park either unless you get very lucky. I had to stop one TKI due to severe intolerance.
Wishing good fortune to yourself and your husband.
Ooo a decade?
I've been on imatinib for 5 years now (5 years post transplant this Friday!)
Hope you're also doing well.
What sort of side effects did you have and what sort of changes or improvements did you notice when you stopped?
So far as I can tell, my hair's a bit thin and my blood levels are slightly lower, I sometimes get some swelling in my legs, but aside from that I've not noticed anything else.
I spent the first 2 years on Dasatinib and had very severe leg pain, swelling, hair thinning, vitiligo and and a recurrence of an old auto immune disease I'd gotten under control for the previous 5 years.
Moved to Imatinib for 8 years after that with a bunch more side effects but more tolerable. Swelling once again, gastro problems that led to gut bacterial overgrowths, balance problems, neutropenia.
I've been off TKI's for the last 13 months. Doc gave the go ahead to try treatment free remission and everything is holding fine so far. It's crazy how much better I feel even though I still have a lot of ailments. One of the obvious changes was the feeling of being less heavy. I've just chalked this up to feeling a lot more fatigued than I realised and the fatigue building slowly over time rather than hitting hard and fast.
I agree. I got diagnosed with Leukaemia nine years ago. There was one treatment for mine at that time. (A form of Chemo)
There’s about five approved ones now and numerous others in the pipeline.
I’m starting my tablet based treatment soon!
All the best to you and your husband.
👍
Cancer medicine is like sci fi in some cases. Neutron lasers and stem cells and all kinds!
Unfortunately the rates of getting cancer is getting worse, but the treatment is amazing.
A strong element in rising cancer rates is simply the fact that we're all getting older and also our screening is getting better. The older you get, the more likely shit is to go wrong in cell processes. And better screening means we're catching more cases, and earlier too.
The survival rates of breast and bowel and several other cancers are amazing compared.to 20 years ago.
I have half a dozen friends who have had breast cancer and two with bowel cancer, who have fully recovered, and I doubt more than a couple of the breast ones would have done so back in 2000.
Still lots of work to do (pancreatic and throat cancers in particular) but we're getting to the point where someone's main worry on getting cancer will be "how long and tedious is the treatment?"
Where are you in the UK? The lack of public toilets is becoming a real problem in retail areas. As for your question though, I'm finding there's a much better design and view in town and city centres; the old brutalist concrete is making way to better, lighter and more open public spaces. Road design is more favourable to pedestrians (i.e. new tunnels are for cars, not people and people get sent over the top) and greenery is much better integrated in city design.
Indeed.
And don't even get me started on the fact that unless you already have one, getting a RADAR key for the disabled facilities is a pain, most of the disabled toilets are upstairs for a start, which defeats the whole object.
I still have my mum's somewhere from before she passed away as didn't get around to returning it at the time. I guess others just sell them on? Or straight-up copies for sale even probably aren't hard to find as I dont rememberit being complex or anything. When it turns up on a spring clean I'll Google retuning it and if that isn't clear, drop it into age uk or something.
You can buy them straight from disability charities online.
Honestly the only people who would go out of their way to order a toilet key online are likely to need them, so there's not much need to gatekeep. I'd rather them be easily available to everyone who feels like they need one than having disabled people go through any more invasive eligibility tests than they already do.
I wish I knew this. I use a wheelchair or mobility scooter but find the blue badge application process invasive, time consuming and weirdly quite traumatic hence have never done it. But yeah, it is frustrating (though entirely my own fault) when I can't use the disabled facilities).
I got mine about 15 years ago from Howden House (Council office) in Town, and then I lost it at the new Bowling Alley on Angel St, so I went back to Howden House about a month ago and got a new one, which fortunately I've not lost (yet) and only cost me 3 quid.
The food is much better and the choice. Any supermarket has a much wider choice of products particularly vegetarian or vegan. The variety and quality of restaurants is generally better. Farmers markets are more common. There are a wider variety of craft beers and ales.
Definitely with you on this one! I remember how hard it was for my parents to feed me when I was a kid after I decided I wanted to be vegetarian! It’s so easy to eat vegetarian or vegan now whether it be your supermarket shop or eating at restaurants!!
Yes! I have been vegetarian for nearly 20 years, and when I was a kid and first became veggie, the only thing in the supermarkets was Quorn. Nowadays, there are SO many more options and variety. I also like that it's easier to get hold of veggie stuff which isn't ultra-processed like tofu and seitan. When I was a kid you'd have to go to Holland and Barrett to get tofu, nowadays it's in most supermarkets, even the small ones.
I was recently trying to describe to a young colleague - bear in mind I’m only 30 - that things like Mangoes, Avocados and Passionfruit were absolutely not available in normal supermarkets in the 90s, that Kiwis was as exotic as it probably got. He proceeded to ask me lots of questions about 90s Supermarkets where I delved into how there was no ‘world foods’ aisle, Supermarkets did not stock books or Electronics, there were more tinned food aisles, self checkouts of any sort did not exist, and tins of beans were not in fact £2, but about 12p for a can.
His responses made me feel like I’d been born in the 19th century.
\* It no longer costs 30p a minute to call someone on a mobile phone
\* Takeaway coffees are generally nicer (probably, I was a wee bit young then)
\* A generally higher standard of food and beverages on offer
Mobile data is also extremely cheap in the UK. I didn't know how good we have it until I moved to Australia and you can be paying £30 odd a month for 30GB of 3G speed data.
And you're pretty much only paying the extra for data now too. I've noticed almost all sim plans are unlimited texts and calls then you just pay increasing amounts for different amounts of data. Even 10 years ago you'd still pay for 200 minutes of calls and however many texts per month plus your data.
Easy to change your plan now too, you can do that online without even needing a new SIM card. I've dropped from 30GB data to 10GB by clicking a few buttons on the app, easy as.
I hate it when I order a coffee from somewhere and they break out a sachet of nescafe granules and UHT milk. Its soul destroying to drink. The next step up is filter coffee stored in a thermos and decanted. I forget this used to be the standard for coffee in a lot of places. Now nearly everywhere has a barista style machine, it's so much better.
- Bureaucracy - everything can be done online now. You used to have to queue in the post office to get anything official done or fill in a paper form and wait 6 weeks to do it by post
- The variety and quality of food available in supermarkets has ballooned. You had to go to an asian supermarket in a large city to get anything moderately specialised.
- beer. No longer is your choice John Smiths or Stella.
- coffee. If anyone tried serving you instant coffee in a cafe these days you'd walk out, back then real ground coffee was for poshers only.
I walked past a building the other day which used to be a Midland bank (now a restaurant), and was reminded of how I used to work very nearby, and go in to said bank at the start of each month to pay my council tax. The council gave you a sort of cheque book thing and 10 months a year you had to pay over the counter, giving them a slip from this booklet, and they'd stamp the stub. This was 2002, not the 60s. Now it just flies out of my account and I don't give it a second thought except for wincing at the annual cost.
Topping up mobile phones by buying a code at a garage. Don't miss that.
Yeah, the loss of all those banks is actually quite sad, some of them were grand buildings, and often very annoying, but I'm glad I've not had to queue up to pay in a cheque for at least a decade.
I went into the Mowgli restaurant on Water St in Liverpool before Christmas. Quite a spectacular restaurant. Indeed, that used to be a grand bank (The Manchester & Liverpool Bank), as did lots of the amazing buildings on that street.
The other one that springs to mind is the Knights Templar pub in London (a Spoons), once the Union Bank. Definitely worth a visit - great ceiling, columns, balconies and niches, chandeliers and tiled floor etc.
As well as beer - cider. No longer do cider drinkers have to settle for Strongbow. You can go into a pub and get a pint of Aspall, Henry Westons, various Thatchers
🤨 You'd have struggled to find anything much over 4% in a pub in 2004. Stella was marketed as a strong lager and nicknamed "wifebeater" because, allegedly, british drinkers couldn't handle its 4.6% ABV.
Most pubs today have at least one beer over 5% on tap and the average is around 4.5%. Most supermarkets have an entire aisle dedicated to beer, going right up to belgian tripels at 11%. Duvel (at 8.5%) is a stock beer at my local tiny morrisons: you'd have had to go to a specialist importer to find that in 2004.
Honestly, it's a massively different scene and the trend has definitely been toward higher abv. In 2004 the US craft beer explosion hadn't made it across the atlantic and continental beer was considered exclusive. John smiths, at 3.6% is practically considered low alcohol these days: it was a very standard beer then.
That’s rubbish- almost all pubs had a strong (premium) lager available and Stella was originally 5% if not a little bit higher.
Stella was reduced from 5% in 2008, Kronenbourg also. Lowenbrau and Holstein were widely available. In fact in terms of draft lager you could argue it was easier to get a higher strength one 20 years ago!
Yes agreed. I was joking to my husband that being able to pull up in a service station and charge our electric car while buying vegan snacks feels like Ecotopia compared to a couple of decades ago.
My 2 year old grandson is allergic to dairy and eggs. I was amazed when first looking at the many vegan alternatives that are now available in the supermarket. I can even buy him a treat like a little cake or a bag of chocolate buttons.
Made vegan scones yesterday, practising for a visiting relative who is lactose intolerant and egg free. They were blooming lovely! Even had vegan whipped cream and jam on. Very good alternatives around these days.
My son is also dairy and egg allergic. It’s still an absolute pain but I feel lucky that so many plant based options are easily available. It’s much easier than it would have been even 10 years ago.
Yeah, the generic tart was getting boring. Now the imitation food actually tastes good and supermarkets and fast food chains are jumping on board, although lately the fast food places are getting rid of their vegan options.
I’ve been a NT member for about 25 years and had been going with family for about 15 more before that.
It’s definitely improved, mainly around things like quality and range of food and drink in cafes, and more seating in many cases too. It used to be that most properties would have a tiny little tea room with crap choice, and that’s a rare sight now.
Possibly, we’ve been members for the last 6 years since having kids, but my family were members when I was a kid. I’ve not seen much change that I can pinpoint, but I certainly appreciate it more now I’m 40 with 3 kids than I did when I was 20 and single
The inevitable tension between the person driving the car and the person in the passenger seat who wasn't very good at reading the road atlas...
Navigating a road trip used to be a much more painful experience before the days of Google/Apple maps.
This is a good shout actually. Pretty sure we had Tom Toms 20 years ago but they were expensive. Simply being able to plug your phone into your car and use a free satnav has made driving a lot better.
I think the first time I saw anyone with a satnav they could plug in was about 2004.
If anyone has an argos copy from the early 2000s that should be a good indicator of when they started to become more ubiquitous
Another one I've thought of is the lack of smoke in public indoor spaces since the smoking ban came in. Yes there's people vaping everywhere but it's less harmful to people breathing it in than second hand smoke.
Bollocks, a 2004 Honda will still be going for 200,000 miles after the nuclear apocalypse with just a supply of 10W/40 and Waxoil. Modern cars have so many emissions systems and turbos and sensors that they are less reliable than cars from the 90s and early 2000s
I suspect you may be afflicted with "20 years ago it was 1984" syndrome. We've all been there...
I'm right with you on this one. So many people defend modern cars. "So much safer, better for the environment and full of awesome tech" completely ignoring the fact that the car will be scrapped within the next 10 years
I remember 1990s cars all too well. Many of them were utter shit, and there were still some 1980s and even late 1970s models on the road which were even worse. I remember seeing many a broken down car being pushed out of traffic, but I think I've only seen that once or twice in the past ten years.
Back in those days the ambient noise in the streets was _so_ much louder because of old engines. It was perfectly normal and commonplace to see rainbow petrol puddles on the ground, or go to the supermarket and see at least one car just refusing to start or someone poking around under the bonnet.
These days people would be banging their fists on the desk and getting lawyers to pore over the warranty if you sold them a new car which wasn't starting after a year. Back then it was normal and a fact of life, even what we'd now call "reliable" brands like Toyota were occasionally dodgy - I knew someone who had a 1990 model and it needed new this and that within three years or you couldn't even turn the ACC mode on, he bought another model in 2004 and kept it for 12 years without it needing anything except a clutch.
You're right that there's more things that can go wrong but current cars are safer, faster, more efficient, better on emissions and have more luxuries as standard
Used market has gotten worse though, a lot harder to find a £1k run-around even accounting for inflation
Now consider the spec you get for a used car, with inflation.
Electric windows, air con, the extra airbags & safety features, fuel economy etc.
You'd be getting pretty high end car to match those 2nd hand 20 years ago.
My kids will never know the morning call of a few dozen starter motors wheezing a fleet of British Layland cars to life on a cold morning on every council estate street. Or the mating calls of all the aftermarket car alarms going off... well, all the time.
And comparatively more expensive, even taking inflation out if it.
Cheap cars just aren’t really a thing anymore. There’s a couple of token examples, but they are barely a market here.
I’d probably agree with you there from my own experience. My first car when I passed my test back in the day was a Rover 114 GSi. It was a joy to drive (as a 19 year old), but given it was manufactured in 1997 it only lasted until 2004 and 50,000 miles. In that time it blew a head gasket (which a mechanic friend replaced for £100 - bargain!) and had various bits and bobs replaced. What killed it was a nasty hole in the radiator.
2008 I ran a 1999 Peugeot 205 into the ground after a brake fluid leak and various other things sent it to the scrap heap.
2011 I ran a 2000 VW Passat into the ground after a bad MOT failure made it uneconomical to fix.
From my experience, cars nowadays seem to suffer fewer mechanical problems, but certainly far more electronic problems. Almost every problem I’ve had with cars in the past decade has been electronic.
The advance in forensic sciences, plus wider sharing of cross-force police information have more or less made it impossible to get away with murder in the UK. Prior to the early 2000s, simply moving from one county to another would cover the tracks of even fairly serious offenders.
Mobile phone plans, unlimited texts and calls tend to now be standard on contracts with tons of data compared to 15-20 years ago. Obviously not exclusive to the UK but it's still an improvement.
Might not be a UK specific thing but mobile banking.
No more trudging down to the bank, either at lunch time or at weekends and having to join long queues ( I recall on several occasions the queue being out the door ).
I can view my accounts, what’s come out, transfer money instantaneously, it’s such a huge convenience that wasn’t here 20 years ago.
Mind you, it took a couple of enterprising people to create decent banking apps to make the major banks play ball, but definitely glad to have it. And no more of this pending and actual balance bullshit.
FasterPayments is something we can gloat about to Americans. No need for third party money services like Venmo and Cashapp when every bank you can pick from can send money to another bank instantly
Sounds like a utopia, I live in a tourist town and all the free toilets have been replaced with paid ones. On one hand I get it, they need to pay for the upkeep and they get used more due to the extra people here during peak seasons but why can't residents have a radar key or a pass to swipe - I pay council tax which a percentage of goes towards the upkeep of the area
To be fair in all the continental European cities I’ve been to it’s been paid public toilets, but it’s still annoying af yea, luckily here in Northern Ireland I haven’t came across a paid one yet anywhere
Thanks to the internet it's a lot easier to keep all the great old stuff I love and will never replace with something new and shit going. 1990s car, 1980s record player, vintage CD players, 10 year old dumb HDTV etc, etc.
Computers are better that's for sure! Mine's 7 years old, still works fine after almost daily use, barely ever crashes, plug and play with pretty much any game or accessory... Can't say the same for a 7 year old laptop in 2004.
I live in East End Glasgow, part of this will be me being older now and seeing it less but there was a noticeable shift after about 2011 from this place is dangerous due to gang violence over to it’s just a typical UK shithole ridden with crime.
I remember growing up here you’d see guys in their 20’s if not older who would claim to be part of these gangs, hang around parks and patches of grass out their nut and causing trouble.
That seemed to totally die out, the actual organised gang violence with older men involved and not being able to walk through most areas without potentially being threatened, now it just seems to be wee fannies who are about 12 being anti social.
They got rid of our public toilets, then said they'd bring them back but you'd have to pay, then people pushed back and the council essentially said "ah fuck the lot of ya then".
I remember even as teenagers, we'd seek out what we called "old man" pubs, as they were the only places you could get anything other than lager or John Smiths.
Online availability of music.
By which, I can download/listen to a song without it bricking my device with viruses.
Limewire, Kazaa, I’m looking at you
not 20 years ago but i remember having to download every single songi wanted individually from tubidy on my blackberry in 2011/12/13. Dont realise how amazing a creation spotify is. Them swedes eh
You can assume that anywhere you go takes card payments, having to get cash out to go to the places that didn't take cards, then be left with loads of change, was a right pain in the arse.
Gluten free foods! As a coeliac family it was a total nightmare getting gluten free. Now it’s everywhere. Still some areas that could be improved and we defo pay a premium for it but it used to be just health food shops we could get stuff from.
Minimum wage is higher compared to inflation, tax free allowance exists and didn’t before. Unemployment is lower and has been low for a while now, in general it is easy to get a job.
I would also say that a lot of town and city centres just look a lot nicer.
im 50 and the job market is as bad now as I ever remember it being. 20 years ago I could walk into a job in a few days - now its months of applications and interviews.
The job market was incredible 20 years ago. Its about that long ago that I quit one job and was offered another within 4 hours.
It takes longer than that to fill in the application, write a specific CV with their preferred buzz words, and write a specific cover letter for a job you only need a pulse to do for minimum wage.
Oops, that is the case. For some reason they didn't have a 0% band like they do now which makes it a little confusing:
https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/taxtables2004.aspx
Still, inflation adjusted the personal allowance was £8,302.53 which is a fair amount lower than it is today.
Vegan food. In the last decade it's got so much more accessible. In 2010 I had to have a Holland & Barrett loyalty card in order to get some of the faux meat options, whereas now they're everywhere. Also restaurants and pubs, and even fast food chains have caught up.
Food safety and hygene standards are better nowadays.
It's a lot of red tape for us in the kitchens but it ensures the diner/customer gets better quality product and fresh produce.
Public toilets
Entertainment
Food quality
Employment
Healthcare technology
Investment opportunities
Building regulations
Views on women
Less smoking
More temperance with alcohol
Less dog mess on paths
It's thankfully now no longer considered fine for 20-something guys to date underage girls.
Most things are better overall.
There might be more toilets, but most of the free ones run by the Council here in Sheffield are so disgustingly grotty you don't want to use them even if you're bursting for a wee or t'other end.
Beer & cider,
Vegetarian / Vegan food,
Online access to public services,
Coastal footpaths,
Bicycle lanes (in cities at least),
parkrun (non-existent until Oct 04)
More a coffee/tea culture- less socials around alcohol. Less violence towards homeless. Less acts of violence overall. More culturally diverse ofcourse.
You find more public toilets than there were 20 years ago? Where do you live? Most of the UK councils are charging or closing toilets.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/free-public-loos-dying-out-24901243
The general knowledge about the existence of veganism, the options in supermarkets and restaurants, the labeling on products being more clear and it being easier to find cruelty free products.
I see less public toilets and I'm glad about it. They used to be vandalised, broken, blocked, , full of perverts.
Go into a toilet in McDs or spoons, and it's immaculate.
I've definitely noticed the quality of the loo roll in public toilets has improved. I remember the public toilets as a kid having that horrible toilet paper that was like greaseproof paper, but haven't seen that in years now.
Work life balance. I'm now working a 4 day week, and able to spend time with my family.
I think since COVID and more research into employee wellbeing, employers (some) are taking heed and making changes.
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Internet speeds
I used to download WoW updates at 50~~0~~ KB/s back in like 2006, I'd quite often start them in the morning before going to school cause they'd take so long, now I have gigabit internet, even 100 megabit internet would have blown peoples minds back then Edit: thinking about it it probably 50 - 100 KB/s not 500, still nothing compared to today though
oh god yeah, remember the original download where you'd have to change discs every now and then
My first copy of Microsoft Office came on 20 floppy disks. Loading was a gamble, praying you didn't get a disk error.
I was telling a friend about this the other day. I used to have to leave the PC running for a day or two and just periodically check in on it.
I used to ask my dad to download Total Annihilation maps and units at work because his business had a dual ISDN line back when we were still on 28.8k dial up There were a couple of MB each so came back on spanned floppy disks
And someone picks up the phone and fucks up your download
I just found out that those motherfuckers updated the [Space Jam website](https://www.spacejam.com/2021/) That was like grade II listed internet architecture
Wdym it still looks very much like 1996
They replaced the logo for the new one, which isn’t a huge deal but a change nonetheless. Otherwise it does look the same. Edit: Oh and the domain now redirects to warner bros. The OG site design is now under https://www.spacejam.com/2021/. The more you look the more they've updated it to reflect the new film.
I remember the Napster days, 15 minutes to download an MP3 of one song!
That's rookie numbers. I remember having to try several times to download With or Without You by U2, because my modem would cut me off after 1hr59. So if it took two hours or longer, no luck.
You were lucky! When I first used the internet way back in the late 80s it took several minutes just to get a really low Res image of some blurry boobs. A whole evening and you'd see like 8. Not 8 women. (And sorry for saying that I downloaded porn photos, but I was a teenage boy and I've learnt better since then. Now it's all hi res movies and no downloads required!)
Going from 8mbps to 3000mbps was an experience.
First thing I thought of !
Internet speeds have grown with technological advances in infrastructure the world over. Compared to many developed nations we aren't doing that well anymore. At position 48 in [Wiki's list by speed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_Internet_connection_speeds) we are at position 48 with countries like Vietnam, Peru and Romania doing somewhat better than us.
Gay rights. It's unthinkable that same-sex marriage took so long to gain acceptance.
Same sex Civil partnerships were a thing about 20 years ago which is legally very similar. It’s because marriage is/was seen as a religious ceremony that it took longer to get the support for changing that too.
Civil partnerships were nowhere near equivalent to the protections afforded to mixed-sex couples through marriage.
The only difference in regards to protections is that Civil Partnerships may not be recognised by certain foreign countries. Both divorces and civil partnerships have the same rules for ending them, they both afford the same benefits and obligations. Inheritance, child custody, tax benefits etc. are all identical. The biggest difference is the process, you're not allowed to have any religious aspects when you sign a civil partnership (though you can arrange something afterwards if you want.) I'm curious what differences *you* think there are that makes civil partnerships so bad compared to marriage.
Pension benefits for civil partners aren't as strong or comprehensive as they are for people who are married.
I was under the impression that adultery was not legal grounds for end a civil partnership, whereas it was legal grounds for divorce. Obviously now these things are non-fault so this is irrelevant.
True, but in fairness adultery was legally defined as sex between a man and a woman. When gay marriage was first legalised a married couple, straight or gay, couldn't divorce because of same sex adultery. But as you say, No Fault Divorce has done away with all of that. Shocking that something like that was only introduced in 2022 though.
That it took so long really shows what a brutal and primitive society we are. It was also only in this century that gay people were allowed to serve openly in the uk military and teachers were allowed to mention homosexuality in schools.
I hope we can look back at the way certain people are treating trans people like this one day. It was only twenty odd years ago that MPs were openly saying that gay marriage would lead to bestiality, and there was this same idea that all gay people were pedophiles and sexual deviants and it wasn't safe to have your kids near them. It's maddening seeing the exact same rhetoric being used for trans people and people lapping it up.
And you could be fired for being gay. One reason I became a civil servant was that the civil service (and a few other employers) banned discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, around 2000.
Crazily gay marriage was legalised in South Africa (2006), a country that less than 40 years ago was still under apartheid, before it was in Britain.
It's both surprising it took so long, but also how quickly it became a non issue for almost everyone in the west once it started to become acceptable.
Gay rights have gotten better, much better. Unfortunately, trans rights are getting worse and worse. Same shit, targeting a different demographic. To come here and see that people say gay rights as being something we can't see ourselves going back on is reassuring, I hope to hear similar things about trans rights in 20 years.
Trans is a pretty new thing ..well its obviously not NEW but for some reason there's ALOT more trans people now than there ever has been, if you went back 10 years it was almost unheard of. So people see it as more of a fad.
>but for some reason The reason is enhanced equality for trans people. The Equality Act in 2010 making it unlawful to discriminate against trans people made it so less people had to make the difficult choice of "well if I come out as trans I'll probably lose my job". As we saw positive portrayals of trans people in the media (such as Laverne Cox in Orange is the new Black or youtubers like Contrapoints) for the first time after decades of films painting trans women as a laughing stock or dangerous, people started to understand more that trans people were regular people deserving of kindness. This made trans people less scared that coming out would mean their friends and family members no longer talking to them. And as social media and the internet have developed, trans people have been able to find community with each other so that fear of being alone if your family abandons you is mitigated slightly by knowing you have people to turn to. When section 28 was overturned LGBT+ charities like Schools Out worked hard to reassure schools it was good to teach young people what LGBT+ means, governments included teaching LGBT in the secondary national curriculum, and we had our first generation of young people being taught what trans means in schools and it not being stigmatised. So more trans young people go "oh wow that's the word for how I've been feeling and didn't know why". Instead of thinking they're broken and feeling ashamed they might feel safe to tell a teacher or their parents. So much work has been done by the LGBT+ rights movement to make society more accepting of trans people. As that happens, more trans people feel safe and supported to come out. We used to have a lot less people coming out as gay in the past too. More equality means more gays!
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Yes! My husband was recently diagnosed with Leukaemia. We were terrified for a couple of weeks, until we were told all he has to do is take a daily tablet with zero side effects. The drug was developed about 20 years ago. We are SO grateful for scientific researchers and TKIs!
My dad died of a bone marrow transplant for leukaemia 24 years ago. Wild how much prospects have changed 🥺
Weird to upvote this but I'm so sorry for your loss.
Aww thank you. My daughter’s friend, aged 7, has just been diagnosed with the same type of leukaemia, so I’m just super happy it’s curable for her!
An upvote is a positive vibe. No context needed.
I was on TKI's for a decade and had numerous side effects. It isn't a patch on the various treatments/courses needed for AML etc but isn't a walk in the park either unless you get very lucky. I had to stop one TKI due to severe intolerance. Wishing good fortune to yourself and your husband.
Ooo a decade? I've been on imatinib for 5 years now (5 years post transplant this Friday!) Hope you're also doing well. What sort of side effects did you have and what sort of changes or improvements did you notice when you stopped? So far as I can tell, my hair's a bit thin and my blood levels are slightly lower, I sometimes get some swelling in my legs, but aside from that I've not noticed anything else.
I spent the first 2 years on Dasatinib and had very severe leg pain, swelling, hair thinning, vitiligo and and a recurrence of an old auto immune disease I'd gotten under control for the previous 5 years. Moved to Imatinib for 8 years after that with a bunch more side effects but more tolerable. Swelling once again, gastro problems that led to gut bacterial overgrowths, balance problems, neutropenia. I've been off TKI's for the last 13 months. Doc gave the go ahead to try treatment free remission and everything is holding fine so far. It's crazy how much better I feel even though I still have a lot of ailments. One of the obvious changes was the feeling of being less heavy. I've just chalked this up to feeling a lot more fatigued than I realised and the fatigue building slowly over time rather than hitting hard and fast.
Yeah like anything there's going to be a range of experiences. I'm glad you're off them now and hopefully better?
I agree. I got diagnosed with Leukaemia nine years ago. There was one treatment for mine at that time. (A form of Chemo) There’s about five approved ones now and numerous others in the pipeline. I’m starting my tablet based treatment soon! All the best to you and your husband. 👍
Cancer medicine is like sci fi in some cases. Neutron lasers and stem cells and all kinds! Unfortunately the rates of getting cancer is getting worse, but the treatment is amazing.
A strong element in rising cancer rates is simply the fact that we're all getting older and also our screening is getting better. The older you get, the more likely shit is to go wrong in cell processes. And better screening means we're catching more cases, and earlier too.
We’re also curing and managing other diseases that would have taken you before cancer had a chance
The survival rates of breast and bowel and several other cancers are amazing compared.to 20 years ago. I have half a dozen friends who have had breast cancer and two with bowel cancer, who have fully recovered, and I doubt more than a couple of the breast ones would have done so back in 2000. Still lots of work to do (pancreatic and throat cancers in particular) but we're getting to the point where someone's main worry on getting cancer will be "how long and tedious is the treatment?"
Early detection is improving pancan - more of us still here! (Stage II 2019)
This is a very good thing
Where are you in the UK? The lack of public toilets is becoming a real problem in retail areas. As for your question though, I'm finding there's a much better design and view in town and city centres; the old brutalist concrete is making way to better, lighter and more open public spaces. Road design is more favourable to pedestrians (i.e. new tunnels are for cars, not people and people get sent over the top) and greenery is much better integrated in city design.
Indeed. And don't even get me started on the fact that unless you already have one, getting a RADAR key for the disabled facilities is a pain, most of the disabled toilets are upstairs for a start, which defeats the whole object.
RADAR keys are very easy to buy online. I’ve not actually done so because I have no need to use the facilities but they’re readily for sale.
I still have my mum's somewhere from before she passed away as didn't get around to returning it at the time. I guess others just sell them on? Or straight-up copies for sale even probably aren't hard to find as I dont rememberit being complex or anything. When it turns up on a spring clean I'll Google retuning it and if that isn't clear, drop it into age uk or something.
You can buy them straight from disability charities online. Honestly the only people who would go out of their way to order a toilet key online are likely to need them, so there's not much need to gatekeep. I'd rather them be easily available to everyone who feels like they need one than having disabled people go through any more invasive eligibility tests than they already do.
I wish I knew this. I use a wheelchair or mobility scooter but find the blue badge application process invasive, time consuming and weirdly quite traumatic hence have never done it. But yeah, it is frustrating (though entirely my own fault) when I can't use the disabled facilities).
They appear to be just mass manufactured and sold on Amazon, eBay and the like, rather than anything official.
I got mine about 15 years ago from Howden House (Council office) in Town, and then I lost it at the new Bowling Alley on Angel St, so I went back to Howden House about a month ago and got a new one, which fortunately I've not lost (yet) and only cost me 3 quid.
You can buy them off Amazon for £5. Presumably better retailers too. Bought one for my SO so I can confirm it works
The food is much better and the choice. Any supermarket has a much wider choice of products particularly vegetarian or vegan. The variety and quality of restaurants is generally better. Farmers markets are more common. There are a wider variety of craft beers and ales.
Definitely with you on this one! I remember how hard it was for my parents to feed me when I was a kid after I decided I wanted to be vegetarian! It’s so easy to eat vegetarian or vegan now whether it be your supermarket shop or eating at restaurants!!
There's ALWAYS a veggie burger on the menu, and I love that about the UK!
So true, the more countries I travel to, the more I realise how good we have it in the UK for veggie options.
I still refuse to eat a mushroom risotto after spending a decade being presented with that as the only option at every restaurant!
Yes! I have been vegetarian for nearly 20 years, and when I was a kid and first became veggie, the only thing in the supermarkets was Quorn. Nowadays, there are SO many more options and variety. I also like that it's easier to get hold of veggie stuff which isn't ultra-processed like tofu and seitan. When I was a kid you'd have to go to Holland and Barrett to get tofu, nowadays it's in most supermarkets, even the small ones.
I was recently trying to describe to a young colleague - bear in mind I’m only 30 - that things like Mangoes, Avocados and Passionfruit were absolutely not available in normal supermarkets in the 90s, that Kiwis was as exotic as it probably got. He proceeded to ask me lots of questions about 90s Supermarkets where I delved into how there was no ‘world foods’ aisle, Supermarkets did not stock books or Electronics, there were more tinned food aisles, self checkouts of any sort did not exist, and tins of beans were not in fact £2, but about 12p for a can. His responses made me feel like I’d been born in the 19th century.
\* It no longer costs 30p a minute to call someone on a mobile phone \* Takeaway coffees are generally nicer (probably, I was a wee bit young then) \* A generally higher standard of food and beverages on offer
Mobile data is also extremely cheap in the UK. I didn't know how good we have it until I moved to Australia and you can be paying £30 odd a month for 30GB of 3G speed data.
And you're pretty much only paying the extra for data now too. I've noticed almost all sim plans are unlimited texts and calls then you just pay increasing amounts for different amounts of data. Even 10 years ago you'd still pay for 200 minutes of calls and however many texts per month plus your data. Easy to change your plan now too, you can do that online without even needing a new SIM card. I've dropped from 30GB data to 10GB by clicking a few buttons on the app, easy as.
I hate it when I order a coffee from somewhere and they break out a sachet of nescafe granules and UHT milk. Its soul destroying to drink. The next step up is filter coffee stored in a thermos and decanted. I forget this used to be the standard for coffee in a lot of places. Now nearly everywhere has a barista style machine, it's so much better.
- Bureaucracy - everything can be done online now. You used to have to queue in the post office to get anything official done or fill in a paper form and wait 6 weeks to do it by post - The variety and quality of food available in supermarkets has ballooned. You had to go to an asian supermarket in a large city to get anything moderately specialised. - beer. No longer is your choice John Smiths or Stella. - coffee. If anyone tried serving you instant coffee in a cafe these days you'd walk out, back then real ground coffee was for poshers only.
I walked past a building the other day which used to be a Midland bank (now a restaurant), and was reminded of how I used to work very nearby, and go in to said bank at the start of each month to pay my council tax. The council gave you a sort of cheque book thing and 10 months a year you had to pay over the counter, giving them a slip from this booklet, and they'd stamp the stub. This was 2002, not the 60s. Now it just flies out of my account and I don't give it a second thought except for wincing at the annual cost. Topping up mobile phones by buying a code at a garage. Don't miss that.
Yeah, the loss of all those banks is actually quite sad, some of them were grand buildings, and often very annoying, but I'm glad I've not had to queue up to pay in a cheque for at least a decade.
I went into the Mowgli restaurant on Water St in Liverpool before Christmas. Quite a spectacular restaurant. Indeed, that used to be a grand bank (The Manchester & Liverpool Bank), as did lots of the amazing buildings on that street. The other one that springs to mind is the Knights Templar pub in London (a Spoons), once the Union Bank. Definitely worth a visit - great ceiling, columns, balconies and niches, chandeliers and tiled floor etc.
As well as beer - cider. No longer do cider drinkers have to settle for Strongbow. You can go into a pub and get a pint of Aspall, Henry Westons, various Thatchers
Unfortunately a lot of the beer is also weaker
There are a lot more strong beers available than 20 years ago too.
🤨 You'd have struggled to find anything much over 4% in a pub in 2004. Stella was marketed as a strong lager and nicknamed "wifebeater" because, allegedly, british drinkers couldn't handle its 4.6% ABV. Most pubs today have at least one beer over 5% on tap and the average is around 4.5%. Most supermarkets have an entire aisle dedicated to beer, going right up to belgian tripels at 11%. Duvel (at 8.5%) is a stock beer at my local tiny morrisons: you'd have had to go to a specialist importer to find that in 2004. Honestly, it's a massively different scene and the trend has definitely been toward higher abv. In 2004 the US craft beer explosion hadn't made it across the atlantic and continental beer was considered exclusive. John smiths, at 3.6% is practically considered low alcohol these days: it was a very standard beer then.
That’s rubbish- almost all pubs had a strong (premium) lager available and Stella was originally 5% if not a little bit higher. Stella was reduced from 5% in 2008, Kronenbourg also. Lowenbrau and Holstein were widely available. In fact in terms of draft lager you could argue it was easier to get a higher strength one 20 years ago!
Really? Where are you? The council got rid of nearly all of ours.
Far FEWER public toilets in my view as well!
Same here. Some have reopened and are maintained and cleaned on a honesty box system by volunteers.
they did get rid of all of ours. We dont have any public toilets in town at all
This, with exception to tourist areas and even those are slim pickings
Vegan options in supermarkets and restaurants
Yes agreed. I was joking to my husband that being able to pull up in a service station and charge our electric car while buying vegan snacks feels like Ecotopia compared to a couple of decades ago.
My 2 year old grandson is allergic to dairy and eggs. I was amazed when first looking at the many vegan alternatives that are now available in the supermarket. I can even buy him a treat like a little cake or a bag of chocolate buttons.
Made vegan scones yesterday, practising for a visiting relative who is lactose intolerant and egg free. They were blooming lovely! Even had vegan whipped cream and jam on. Very good alternatives around these days.
My son is also dairy and egg allergic. It’s still an absolute pain but I feel lucky that so many plant based options are easily available. It’s much easier than it would have been even 10 years ago.
Gluten free too.
Yeah, the generic tart was getting boring. Now the imitation food actually tastes good and supermarkets and fast food chains are jumping on board, although lately the fast food places are getting rid of their vegan options.
Long gone are the days of goats cheese tart (or mushroom risotto) being the only veggie choice. HURRAH.
The .gov portal is really quite good.
National trust and how accessible parks and trails are to the public
Has the national trust really changed that much in the last 20years? Or have you just aged into a demographic that appreciates it?
I’ve been a NT member for about 25 years and had been going with family for about 15 more before that. It’s definitely improved, mainly around things like quality and range of food and drink in cafes, and more seating in many cases too. It used to be that most properties would have a tiny little tea room with crap choice, and that’s a rare sight now.
maybe the fact it hasn't really changed that much, compared to how much everything else has, is what they're appreciating
Possibly, we’ve been members for the last 6 years since having kids, but my family were members when I was a kid. I’ve not seen much change that I can pinpoint, but I certainly appreciate it more now I’m 40 with 3 kids than I did when I was 20 and single
The inevitable tension between the person driving the car and the person in the passenger seat who wasn't very good at reading the road atlas... Navigating a road trip used to be a much more painful experience before the days of Google/Apple maps.
This is a good shout actually. Pretty sure we had Tom Toms 20 years ago but they were expensive. Simply being able to plug your phone into your car and use a free satnav has made driving a lot better.
I think the first time I saw anyone with a satnav they could plug in was about 2004. If anyone has an argos copy from the early 2000s that should be a good indicator of when they started to become more ubiquitous
Only now my wife who mostly refuses to drive want to argue with the mapping app I am using, cannot win.
Another one I've thought of is the lack of smoke in public indoor spaces since the smoking ban came in. Yes there's people vaping everywhere but it's less harmful to people breathing it in than second hand smoke.
It happened in 2007! Seems much further away
Cars are better. Just objectively.
Bollocks, a 2004 Honda will still be going for 200,000 miles after the nuclear apocalypse with just a supply of 10W/40 and Waxoil. Modern cars have so many emissions systems and turbos and sensors that they are less reliable than cars from the 90s and early 2000s I suspect you may be afflicted with "20 years ago it was 1984" syndrome. We've all been there...
I'm right with you on this one. So many people defend modern cars. "So much safer, better for the environment and full of awesome tech" completely ignoring the fact that the car will be scrapped within the next 10 years
I mean the cars that normal people are driving right now. I have a 2009 Toyota that is good as gold.
To be fair a lot of people don't use brand new cars, so a 20 year ago car in their frame of reference was most likely from 1990s.
In the 1990s driving a 20 year old car meant you were a classic car enthusiast. These days no one bats an eyelid, cars from that era were so good
I remember 1990s cars all too well. Many of them were utter shit, and there were still some 1980s and even late 1970s models on the road which were even worse. I remember seeing many a broken down car being pushed out of traffic, but I think I've only seen that once or twice in the past ten years. Back in those days the ambient noise in the streets was _so_ much louder because of old engines. It was perfectly normal and commonplace to see rainbow petrol puddles on the ground, or go to the supermarket and see at least one car just refusing to start or someone poking around under the bonnet. These days people would be banging their fists on the desk and getting lawyers to pore over the warranty if you sold them a new car which wasn't starting after a year. Back then it was normal and a fact of life, even what we'd now call "reliable" brands like Toyota were occasionally dodgy - I knew someone who had a 1990 model and it needed new this and that within three years or you couldn't even turn the ACC mode on, he bought another model in 2004 and kept it for 12 years without it needing anything except a clutch.
You're right that there's more things that can go wrong but current cars are safer, faster, more efficient, better on emissions and have more luxuries as standard Used market has gotten worse though, a lot harder to find a £1k run-around even accounting for inflation
Now consider the spec you get for a used car, with inflation. Electric windows, air con, the extra airbags & safety features, fuel economy etc. You'd be getting pretty high end car to match those 2nd hand 20 years ago.
Certainly quieter, more efficient and last longer
My kids will never know the morning call of a few dozen starter motors wheezing a fleet of British Layland cars to life on a cold morning on every council estate street. Or the mating calls of all the aftermarket car alarms going off... well, all the time.
And comparatively more expensive, even taking inflation out if it. Cheap cars just aren’t really a thing anymore. There’s a couple of token examples, but they are barely a market here.
Safety is expensive and Fortunately can't be skipped.
Good point. This is important context.
I’d probably agree with you there from my own experience. My first car when I passed my test back in the day was a Rover 114 GSi. It was a joy to drive (as a 19 year old), but given it was manufactured in 1997 it only lasted until 2004 and 50,000 miles. In that time it blew a head gasket (which a mechanic friend replaced for £100 - bargain!) and had various bits and bobs replaced. What killed it was a nasty hole in the radiator. 2008 I ran a 1999 Peugeot 205 into the ground after a brake fluid leak and various other things sent it to the scrap heap. 2011 I ran a 2000 VW Passat into the ground after a bad MOT failure made it uneconomical to fix. From my experience, cars nowadays seem to suffer fewer mechanical problems, but certainly far more electronic problems. Almost every problem I’ve had with cars in the past decade has been electronic.
Drinking and dining options are far better.
And far more of a rip off.
I’d rather pay £10 for something interesting than £4 for chicken in a basket
cant even buy takeaway fish and chips for a tenner. When did you last go out to eat?
Yesterday, paneer kadai and some okra fries for about £11
We don't seem to get any serial killers getting a decent run nowadays.
Maybe they have just got better at covering their tracks?
The advance in forensic sciences, plus wider sharing of cross-force police information have more or less made it impossible to get away with murder in the UK. Prior to the early 2000s, simply moving from one county to another would cover the tracks of even fairly serious offenders.
Lucy Letby?
She killed babies though, that's cheating as they don't have any defense.
Mobile phone plans, unlimited texts and calls tend to now be standard on contracts with tons of data compared to 15-20 years ago. Obviously not exclusive to the UK but it's still an improvement.
Can't believe I used to pay 10p to send a single text.
Can’t believe I used to pay £2.99 for 20 second polyphonic ringtones.
The Nokia composer and lunchtime trips to the library for sheet music was all I needed
Literally you get so much more data now for cheaper
I don’t think I’ve ever even used my full data and calls allowance. I’m not even paying £30/m
I still have my original mobile number and when I first took it as I recall £15 a month for 15 minutes included.
Level of service from drug dealers is incredible these days.
Those menus with all the emojis are insane
"Did somebody say, Just Rip"
Might not be a UK specific thing but mobile banking. No more trudging down to the bank, either at lunch time or at weekends and having to join long queues ( I recall on several occasions the queue being out the door ). I can view my accounts, what’s come out, transfer money instantaneously, it’s such a huge convenience that wasn’t here 20 years ago.
Mind you, it took a couple of enterprising people to create decent banking apps to make the major banks play ball, but definitely glad to have it. And no more of this pending and actual balance bullshit. FasterPayments is something we can gloat about to Americans. No need for third party money services like Venmo and Cashapp when every bank you can pick from can send money to another bank instantly
24/7 gyms are available in most towns and all cities, gives a lot of extra flexibility to fit it around people’s lifestyles
Sounds like a utopia, I live in a tourist town and all the free toilets have been replaced with paid ones. On one hand I get it, they need to pay for the upkeep and they get used more due to the extra people here during peak seasons but why can't residents have a radar key or a pass to swipe - I pay council tax which a percentage of goes towards the upkeep of the area
It’s to stop smack heads going in them.
To be fair in all the continental European cities I’ve been to it’s been paid public toilets, but it’s still annoying af yea, luckily here in Northern Ireland I haven’t came across a paid one yet anywhere
Thanks to the internet it's a lot easier to keep all the great old stuff I love and will never replace with something new and shit going. 1990s car, 1980s record player, vintage CD players, 10 year old dumb HDTV etc, etc. Computers are better that's for sure! Mine's 7 years old, still works fine after almost daily use, barely ever crashes, plug and play with pretty much any game or accessory... Can't say the same for a 7 year old laptop in 2004.
I get less racial abuse nowadays.
Awareness of mental health issues
Women’s sport Park Run Contactless payments
I live in East End Glasgow, part of this will be me being older now and seeing it less but there was a noticeable shift after about 2011 from this place is dangerous due to gang violence over to it’s just a typical UK shithole ridden with crime. I remember growing up here you’d see guys in their 20’s if not older who would claim to be part of these gangs, hang around parks and patches of grass out their nut and causing trouble. That seemed to totally die out, the actual organised gang violence with older men involved and not being able to walk through most areas without potentially being threatened, now it just seems to be wee fannies who are about 12 being anti social.
They got rid of our public toilets, then said they'd bring them back but you'd have to pay, then people pushed back and the council essentially said "ah fuck the lot of ya then".
No smoking in pubs, and I smoked between 95 and 2022
Beer choice
I remember even as teenagers, we'd seek out what we called "old man" pubs, as they were the only places you could get anything other than lager or John Smiths.
Online availability of music. By which, I can download/listen to a song without it bricking my device with viruses. Limewire, Kazaa, I’m looking at you
not 20 years ago but i remember having to download every single songi wanted individually from tubidy on my blackberry in 2011/12/13. Dont realise how amazing a creation spotify is. Them swedes eh
I miss Napster though. It was such a fun part of history.
I love how people are flocking to ask OP where he lives with regards to his public toilet privileges. So British.
I’ve found exactly the opposite, where is this magic place?
Way less homophobia.
the gov.uk website is a godsend for so many things.
You can assume that anywhere you go takes card payments, having to get cash out to go to the places that didn't take cards, then be left with loads of change, was a right pain in the arse.
Dentists.. some of the equipment/stuff they used 20-30 years ago might be in a museum soon.. while the dentists of that era might be in the cemetery.
at least 20 years ago you could get a dentist.
Yeah I definitely think the dentistry situation was better 20 years ago.
coffee availability.
Gluten free foods! As a coeliac family it was a total nightmare getting gluten free. Now it’s everywhere. Still some areas that could be improved and we defo pay a premium for it but it used to be just health food shops we could get stuff from.
Where are these magical free public toilets of which you speak?!
Minimum wage is higher compared to inflation, tax free allowance exists and didn’t before. Unemployment is lower and has been low for a while now, in general it is easy to get a job. I would also say that a lot of town and city centres just look a lot nicer.
im 50 and the job market is as bad now as I ever remember it being. 20 years ago I could walk into a job in a few days - now its months of applications and interviews.
The job market was incredible 20 years ago. Its about that long ago that I quit one job and was offered another within 4 hours. It takes longer than that to fill in the application, write a specific CV with their preferred buzz words, and write a specific cover letter for a job you only need a pulse to do for minimum wage.
Tax-free personal allowance definitely existed 20 years ago.
Oops, that is the case. For some reason they didn't have a 0% band like they do now which makes it a little confusing: https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/taxtables2004.aspx Still, inflation adjusted the personal allowance was £8,302.53 which is a fair amount lower than it is today.
Restaurant choices
Homelessness levels, they’re higher so better?
Food banks are booming right now.
A bottle of Thomas Hardy ale
The drinking culture
Vegan food. In the last decade it's got so much more accessible. In 2010 I had to have a Holland & Barrett loyalty card in order to get some of the faux meat options, whereas now they're everywhere. Also restaurants and pubs, and even fast food chains have caught up.
Food safety and hygene standards are better nowadays. It's a lot of red tape for us in the kitchens but it ensures the diner/customer gets better quality product and fresh produce.
Speciality coffee shops 🙌
Public toilets Entertainment Food quality Employment Healthcare technology Investment opportunities Building regulations Views on women Less smoking More temperance with alcohol Less dog mess on paths It's thankfully now no longer considered fine for 20-something guys to date underage girls. Most things are better overall.
There might be more toilets, but most of the free ones run by the Council here in Sheffield are so disgustingly grotty you don't want to use them even if you're bursting for a wee or t'other end.
Beer & cider, Vegetarian / Vegan food, Online access to public services, Coastal footpaths, Bicycle lanes (in cities at least), parkrun (non-existent until Oct 04)
The London underground. Changed due to 2012. Before then delays and failures were a total nightmare
there's more choice in food in the supermarkets
Nando’s
More a coffee/tea culture- less socials around alcohol. Less violence towards homeless. Less acts of violence overall. More culturally diverse ofcourse.
You find more public toilets than there were 20 years ago? Where do you live? Most of the UK councils are charging or closing toilets. https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/free-public-loos-dying-out-24901243
Can't say I've noticed a surfeit of public khazis TBH that maybe me getting older and my habit of chain drinking tea catching up on me.
The general knowledge about the existence of veganism, the options in supermarkets and restaurants, the labeling on products being more clear and it being easier to find cruelty free products.
The sea. Return of seals and dolphins.
I see less public toilets and I'm glad about it. They used to be vandalised, broken, blocked, , full of perverts. Go into a toilet in McDs or spoons, and it's immaculate.
Less white dog poo.
October
Apart from Rent/House prices, just about everything.
I've definitely noticed the quality of the loo roll in public toilets has improved. I remember the public toilets as a kid having that horrible toilet paper that was like greaseproof paper, but haven't seen that in years now.
Work life balance. I'm now working a 4 day week, and able to spend time with my family. I think since COVID and more research into employee wellbeing, employers (some) are taking heed and making changes.
The Tube, so easy and reliable now with Apple Pay, no more trying to figure out which zone your drugs are in….