# What became ubiquitous then went away in your lifetime? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2026, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180 "2026-04-10T22:01:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/381 "2026-04-22T04:56:37Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > That actually makes sense once I think about it. The type of person to use a TV Guide is probably also more likely the type to still watch over the air or cable TV, i.e. older, and there’s probably at least enough thousands of them to support a small monthly (weekly? we never had TV Guide) print run. _TV Guide_ used to run weekly issues. I don’t know what their frequency is now. I do know that the magazine stopped giving listings of what shows were being broadcast. (They have a website that still gives listings.) They rebranded themselves as a magazine about television shows and celebrities. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/382 "2026-04-22T04:57:31Z")
I came of programming age in the 1970s, so I witnessed the rise and fade of those chonky portable-TV-type home computers and mainframe monitors. There was one on every desk in the first couple jobs I worked. (Oh, and floppy disks.) ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/383 "2026-04-22T07:50:15Z")
Does OJ Simpson count? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/384 "2026-04-22T11:55:26Z")
I can see a case for that, but the OP is more looking for things. I’m presuming you are saying this in jest. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/385 "2026-04-22T12:27:12Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Speaking of credit card verification, I remember seeing\* a credit card presented and the cashier hauling up what looked like a thin phone book and carefully checking to see whether the card’s number was in it. > > After that period, them picking up the phone, dialing a number, then the CC number, and waiting several moments for the okay. > > \*I was far too young to be presenting a card myself. You must be a decade or so younger than me. When I worked at a department store in the mid/late 1980s and then at a regional drugstore chain, we used these books. At the department store for all cards. At the drugstore for just Amex, Discover and Diners Club. The diners club book was tiny, the Amex one was probably 200 pages, tiny print. Even when we used the electronic terminal (not connected to the cash register) we still had to use the imprinting machine and fill out and get a signature on the charge sheet. If you got a stolen or canceled card, we were supposed to retain the card and you could get a $25/$50/$100. Considering the starting hourly wage for a cashier was $3.35 in 1987, this was an amount a cashier might be willing to risk a physical altercation for. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/386 "2026-04-22T13:00:39Z")
1-900 numbers. Became all the rage for a period in the 90’s and early 2000s. Now vanished. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/387 "2026-04-22T14:50:05Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > For certain values of ubiquitous, Unix workstations were very common in university computer labs, and probably some corporate settings, and then completely gone. I’m talking about dedicated Unix workstations like you’d get from Sun, SiliconGraphics, and DEC. Their disappearance is highly correlated with the disappearance of those companies, too. > > And yes, it would be technically right (the best kind of right!) to call Macs Unix workstations, but I’m not accepting that, because they’ve been so heavily wrapped in a very non-Unix UI. The same as Android is technically Linux, but also not what anyone means when they talk about “running Linux.” I’m not calling Linux computers Unix workstations, because they’re just general purpose PCs that happen to be running Linux, not computers like a SparcStation that were always designed with the intent of running the Solaris flavor of Unix. I used Unix workstations, including Sun SparcStations (which is such a cool name!) as an engineering student in college. I did technical computing on the Unix workstations, and prepared lab reports and wrote term papers on the Macs at the time which ran what is now referred to classic MacOS. Now of course the Mac (and Apple iPhone, for that matter) that I currently use is many orders of magnitude more powerful than those Sun workstations of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/388 "2026-04-22T14:56:34Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > 1-900 numbers. Became all the rage for a period in the 90’s and early 2000s. Now vanished. Even a bit earlier than that (1980s). In the 1990s, FTC regulations started to take the wind out of their sails by the early '90s, but they were basically a sort of proto-internet (1-900 numbers offered information, and/or chats), and the rise of the internet, which provided the same sorts of things, doomed them. > **[The Rise and Fall of the 1-900 Number - Priceonomics](https://priceonomics.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-1-900-number/)** > > For a few glorious years, 1-900 numbers gave us a taste of the Internet to come—and made a lot of people rich. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/389 "2026-04-22T14:59:07Z")
In my lifetime VHS has got to be the absolute zenith example. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/390 "2026-04-22T17:48:44Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > For certain values of ubiquitous, Unix workstations were very common in university computer labs, and probably some corporate settings, and then completely gone. I’m talking about dedicated Unix workstations like you’d get from Sun, SiliconGraphics, and DEC. Their disappearance is highly correlated with the disappearance of those companies, too. Very true, and I was there for all of it. When I was at Bell Labs I was the first manager to buy Sun workstations for my group, and I became very popular after AT&T invested in Sun. Software and EE groups were 100% Sun. Then I moved to Sun, but before I retired, after Oracle bought us, we used laptops running emulators that let us log into compute servers to do useful Solaris work. They emulated the thin client SunRays that we had moved to away from actual workstations before. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/391 "2026-04-22T23:05:10Z")
I saw a car bra today, on a newish Nissan. I’m not sure what model it was. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2026, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/392 "2026-04-23T03:27:33Z")
That was an interesting article. There was a Japanese version of the 1-900 numbers, but I only remember it being used for sex chats. Apparently, some people did get a lot of money running operations out of small apartment but that also went away. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/393 "2026-05-03T01:27:28Z")
I’ve got one: the charity telethon or pledge drive. Back when there were only 3 channels + PBS and random UHF stations, two or three times a year one of these events would take over a channel for _hours_ and they would literally hold the “real” entertainment hostage until they got enough donations or pledges to return to normal programming. Entirely replaced by GoFundMe, direct donations, and other streams today, because the old leverage is gone. People now would just watch or do something else. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/394 "2026-05-03T02:10:59Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Back when there were only 3 channels + PBS and random UHF stations, two or three times a year one of these events would take over a channel for _hours_ and they would literally hold the “real” entertainment hostage until they got enough donations or pledges to return to normal programming. My local PBS and NPR stations absolutely still do on-air perodic pledge drives, but they do them a little differently now than they did decades ago: they intersperse regular programming with hosted breaks to beg for financial support. The PBS station tends to also run “stunt” programming — classic rock concerts, old Ken Burns documentaries — during their pledge drives, which they don’t usually run during non-pledge periods, no doubt to attract eyeballs and possible donors. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/395 "2026-05-03T02:26:14Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > The PBS station tends to also run “stunt” programming — classic rock concerts, old Ken Burns documentaries — during their pledge drives, which they don’t usually run during non-pledge periods, no doubt to attract eyeballs and possible donors. Same here. 2-3 times a year is my guess. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/396 "2026-05-03T02:41:51Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I’ve got one: the charity telethon or pledge drive. Back when there were only 3 channels + PBS and random UHF stations, two or three times a year one of these events would take over a channel for _hours_ and they would literally hold the “real” entertainment hostage until they got enough donations or pledges to return to normal programming. I remember them from when I was a child. I don’t know when they became commonplace, but the OP is looking for things that weren’t there when you were a child and then became ubiquitous. This thread isn’t for things that have simply gone away. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/397 "2026-05-03T09:23:42Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/oiNkSAwQFZY/maxresdefault.jpg "PBS & John Denver") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiNkSAwQFZY) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/398 "2026-05-03T11:45:19Z")
Democracy. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/399 "2026-05-03T11:54:24Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I’ve got one: the charity telethon or pledge drive. I thought at first that this post was going to be about the Jerry Lewis telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which used to be held every Labor Day weekend. It’s actually a good candidate for this thread. For something like 21 hours, Jerry Lewis and Ed McMahon would host a big telethon in Las Vegas, which was broadcast on seemingly every channel (pre-empting all my favorite cartoons!) to raise money for the MDA. It featured performances by a lot of big-name entertainers, most of whom a kid like me had never heard of. Wikipedia tells me that the first such telethon was broadcast in 1966, which is the year before I was born. But it also says that 1970 was the first year in which the broadcast was seen coast-to-coast, and 1976 was when it reached its peak of being shown on 213 stations, so I think that counts as “becoming ubiquitous” during my life. Lewis left as host after the 2010 version (it’s unclear whether he stepped down voluntarily or was fired), and the telethon slowly petered out, having been getting shorter and being shown on fewer and fewer stations for awhile before that. Even by that time, it seemed like a dinosaur, a relic of an earlier age. I can’t say I really miss it, but it was kind of shock the first time I realized that they didn’t do it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2026, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/400 "2026-05-03T12:27:22Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Democracy What year did it become ubiquitous? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=21)