# 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:** 38
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/741 "2026-09-08T17:05:49Z")
In a broader sense, large scale dedicated specialty stores (computers, electronics, appliances) seem to have more or less come and gone. The ones that are left are usually part of some big-box vendor of some kind- Walmart/Target, Home Depot/Lowe’s, generalized home goods (Nebraska Furniture Mart), or online. ---
**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:** [September 8, 2026, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/742 "2026-09-08T17:14:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In a broader sense, large scale dedicated specialty stores (computers, electronics, appliances) seem to have more or less come and gone. Best Buy is still alive, somehow. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/743 "2026-09-08T18:52:12Z")
I don’t know that I’d call Best Buy a specialty store anymore. Maybe when it changed from an audio store ( stereos, speakers and records) to a broader selection of electronics ( TVs, cell phones, e-readers) it was still “specialty” , but when they started selling large and small appliances , that took it out of specialty There’s an even wider variety online - bathroom vanities and outdoor grills and camping equipment . ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/744 "2026-09-08T19:04:44Z")
It really depends. My minivans were more convenient for carrying sheetrock/plywood and the third row was easier to get into and had more legroom than the third row in my crossover SUVs. Of course, I’ve only used the third row twice in 15 years of driving an SUV and I needed to transport sheetrock/plywood maybe twice. Main reason I switched was because I was no longer hauling half the baseball team around and I didn’t want to look like it. Couldn’t have cared less about the off-road capability ( If any - I caused hysterical laughter in a car full of people when my husband drove past a sign that said “unimproved road ahead” and I yelled "It isn’t a _real_ SUV at him) ---
**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:** [September 8, 2026, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/745 "2026-09-08T22:32:31Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Main reason I switched was because I was no longer hauling half the baseball team around and I didn’t want to look like it. I’m still hauling the futsal team around and will be for a couple more years. A lot of families here go skiing/ snowboarding and having minivans means that you can take turns driving for that as well. We’ve done a few trips that included my daughter’s boyfriend and it’s nice to have the space. My wife’s family often come up from Taiwan so having three rows of seats instead of two makes a difference. One of the group has a SUV and while it looks much cooler, they just can’t carry as much. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/746 "2026-09-08T23:22:45Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > In a short while, we’ll be able to add video game cartridges to this list. > > If you want a game you can download it. > > I’m sure this will become the norm across the industry in just a few years. > > And will expand to include albums and movies. Physical media is going to be a relic of the past. Physical media for software applications has already disappeared. I remember visiting a large computer/appliance store back in the mid 1990s. I _think_ it was Sun Television and Appliances; I forget. Anyway, they had rows and rows of software you could purchase, on either CD-ROMs or 3.5" floppy disks. A lot of it was educational, e.g. interactive software to teach you how to type. I remember buying software that was an encyclopedia containing info and pics for thousands of movies. “Multimedia” was a common term then. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/747 "2026-09-09T03:58:57Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In a broader sense, large scale dedicated specialty stores (computers, electronics, appliances) seem to have more or less come and gone. The ones that are left are usually part of some big-box vendor of some kind- Walmart/Target, Home Depot/Lowe’s, generalized home goods (Nebraska Furniture Mart), or online. Best Buy, PC Richards, Microcenter ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/748 "2026-09-09T13:34:15Z")
I was surprised to see a PC Richards when I was in NY last month. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/749 "2026-09-09T13:55:10Z")
OK, there’s another thread about sunroofs in cars. I’m too lazy to link to it, but there was indeed a period (maybe 1970 - 1990) when after-market sunroofs were fairly popular. Don’t see them much now. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/750 "2026-09-09T19:56:34Z")
“went away in your lifetime” doesn’t mean there are NO stores left, just very few. There have never been many Microcenters, and as mentioned upthread, Best Buy has metamorphosed into something fundamentally different than what they used to be. Don’t know about PC Richards, but looking into it, they’re described as “appliance, television, electronics, and mattress stores”, which makes me think they did a metamorphosis like Best Buy from strictly electronics. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Anyway, they had rows and rows of software you could purchase, on either CD-ROMs or 3.5" floppy disks. Well yeah, back in the 90s and before when you were looking to get a game, you’d go to CompUSA/Fry’s/Best Buy/wherever, and walk the aisles looking at the boxes, and choosing your software based on what was on the box, or maybe based on a magazine article somewhere like Byte or Computer Gaming World. The web killed that market stone dead. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/751 "2026-09-11T04:44:28Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > OK, there’s another thread about sunroofs in cars. I’m too lazy to link to it, but there was indeed a period (maybe 1970 - 1990) when after-market sunroofs were fairly popular. Don’t see them much now. I was told they leaked and made the car structure dangerous in case of an accident. But that could be wrong. ---
**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:** [September 11, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/752 "2026-09-11T18:53:32Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Physical media for software applications has already disappeared. > > I remember visiting a large computer/appliance store back in the mid 1990s. I _think_ it was Sun Television and Appliances; I forget. Anyway, they had rows and rows of software you could purchase, on either CD-ROMs or 3.5" floppy disks. A lot of it was educational, e.g. interactive software to teach you how to type. I remember buying software that was an encyclopedia containing info and pics for thousands of movies. “Multimedia” was a common term then. They also had disks with everyone’s name and address, I guess collected from telcos. I still have one for the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, probably no longer readable. I went to Japan once with a tape containing our EDA software with a list price in the hundreds of thousands of bucks. I was told that if customs asked, declare it to be the price of the tape itself, not the contents. This was standard practice, it seems. No one ever asked, so it was okay. > [@Railer13](#): > > Many of us remember when we first heard the term ‘modem’, and nobody had one! In 1980 I got offered a job at Bell Labs designing one, called Dataphone 2. The project was a disaster, Fortunately, someone I knew from grad school got hired by the group, so I was warned. We used modems back then to call the mainframe in Naperville IL from our offices in Princeton. At a speedy 1200 baud. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/753 "2026-09-11T19:01:08Z")
Well 1200 baud is a lot faster than 300 baud which some people here may be familiar with. ---
**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:** [September 11, 2026, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/754 "2026-09-11T19:06:31Z")
True, but we were the phone company and got all the newest toys. ---
**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:** [September 11, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/755 "2026-09-11T19:11:57Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Well 1200 baud is a lot faster than 300 baud which some people here may be familiar with. I can remember when, at work, we got a 9600 baud modem. We thought we were at the forefront of technology. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/756 "2026-09-11T19:43:06Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > We thought we were at the forefront of technology. For a few weeks, you probably were! ---
**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:** [September 11, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/757 "2026-09-11T20:01:31Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > We thought we were at the forefront of technology. > [@ricepad](#): > > For a few weeks, you probably were IIRC, our speed-demon modem had to negotiate down to 2400 or even 1200 baud to communicate with a couple of sites we were talking to. Obviously, we WERE the leading edge. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/758 "2026-09-11T20:30:54Z")
For some reason, maybe I’m remembering this wrong, but when the WWW really started to take off and errybody jumped on this new-fangled Internet thing, one of the first popular video downloads was the Exploding Oregon Whale D.O.T. debacle. Not having a fast connection, it took about 2 hours to download. And it never did play. I didn’t really have fast reliable video till I purchased a smartphone. Dial-up never did keep up, when I got a faster modem, then the videos just got larger, or required more bandwidth or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2026, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/759 "2026-09-12T00:15:46Z")
In rememberance of 9/11. I was on-site for a startup and they had recently added WiFi internet access. As normal, I was waiting on the “Mechanical” people to get their shit together to start testing. So… drinking coffee and perusing the news websites. NOTHING… worked. I didn’t find out for 4 hours until I went to lunch with people from the front office that had TV’s. I had 4 hours of ignorance that I haven’t experienced since. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2026, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180/760 "2026-09-12T02:36:01Z")
This one only lasted a few years at most, but in the late 1970s many gas pumps (in the US) had notes taped on them that said “PRICE IS TWICE THE AMOUNT DISPLAYED.” The pumps were built to assume the price of a gallon of gas would always be less than one dollar, with a maximum of 99.9 cents. About 1977, when gas crept above $1.00 per gallon, gas retailers just set the price at the half gallon price; you had to double that to get the true price. At that time, you either had a gas station attendant filling your tank, or had to go inside to pay, so they made sure you paid the correct amount. Eventually new pumps were installed, and the signs disappeared. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-became-ubiquitous-then-went-away-in-your-lifetime/1029180.md?page=39)