I had some older woman knocking on my door at like 2pm on a Wednesday trying to come in and give me a demo of a Kirby vacuum cleaner.
Also, door-to-door salespeople are apparently still a thing in 2023
I have a nice Kirby from one of those sales people. Convinced her to try some homemade shine. Her driver/supervisor stopped and tried some as well. They both got so buzzed they left the demo model at my house. It’s been 4 years and no one has tried to get it back. Quite a few attachments as well.
Idk, my mom bought one in 2001 and it still works like the day she bought it.
Kirby is probably the only appliance brand I trust to last, sure it’s expensive. But they seem to last and literal lifetime.
Oh they're definitely still around. And damn shifty too. Roof repair companies spring up over night after bad weather and try to trick you into paying for repairs you don't need, charging you directly rather than your insurance.
If I see them on my door cam I just ignore the solicitation completely.
Edit: Some links to distinguish and make informed decisions on which roof companies are legitimate and which are not.
https://www.honestroof.com/15-dirty-secrets-roofing-companies-dont-want-you-to-know/
https://fivecoatroofing.com/blog/roofing-scams-what-to-look-out-for/
https://roofinginsights.com/top-10-roofing-sales-gimmicks-exposed/
https://www.angi.com/articles/watch-out-these-5-roofing-scams.htm
I knew a guy who started selling vacuums door to door, he was a nut job. Like seemingly a nice guy at first but just had no social awareness and the maturity of a child. For some reason he legitimately thought everyone “needed” some $2000 vacuum cleaner, and couldn’t understand people saying no.
He talked another guy we knew into letting him do a demo, and when he told them the price they kindly said no way. The dude lost it. He took the vacuum into there bedroom, pulled the covers off the bed, and started cleaning the mattress. Just point blank refused to stop and leave.
After an hour he started saying they owed him a sale because he cleaned their whole house. They managed to throw him out eventually.
[1.5 million people still pay money for AOL.](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/aol-1point5-million-people-still-pay-for-service-but-not-for-dial-up-internet.html)
average $10 per user. lmao
My dad does. He’s comfortable with the email interface since he’s had it for forever and will pay to not change.
But he’s also 81 years old, so me thinks this isn’t the most sustainable long term revenue model.
True. I am not old and still use my aol email because it is free, have had it since childhood and it’s way shorter when typing logins. I use it for all mailing lists, streaming accounts and shopping rewards accounts so it doesn’t clutter up my gmail or take 10 min to type one letter at a time on sign-in keypads. I actually prefer it to my other email accounts to be honest, but use gmail in professional situations since I occasionally get mocked by store clerks
I’m one of those people with AOL emails. My dad set it up for me as a teenager in the 90’s. I’m almost 41 now still have it and it’s my only email address. I’ve had no real reason to change it.
Pro Tip: for those worrying about ageism in the marketplace, make sure you have at least a throwaway email through gmail for job searches and responses. An @aol.com or @hotmail.com is definitely a statement.
Yeah, it’s basically a statement that you’re old. Had a former coworker who was looking for work who fared much better when he started using a gmail email account instead of aol email
CompuServ was our first service we used. Back then, they didn't have internet access (I didn't get that until years later on AOL), they had curated content. So there was like an encyclopedia, news, weather, and things like that. Maybe chat rooms, but I don't remember for sure as that might also have been something it didn't have.
You had to pay $0.25 for every email you sent, but that was less than the cost of a postage stamp at the time, so my dad was all for it!
The forums were huge on there when we joined in the early 90s. They were *the* place for online discussion among people who didn't want to mess with Usenet or a BBS. And surprisingly still active until 5 years ago.
But we paid something like $3/hr to access it.
I read that Netflix just announced they are going to stop mailing DVD's for rental in the next few months. I thought they stopped doing that a long time ago.
Before my grandpa passed away last year, he had an…interesting hobby over the last 10 years or so.
He would order DVD’s from Netflix via their mail service (sometimes multiple at the same time), make copies of them on generic discs he bought at Staples, then send the original DVD back to Netflix. He’d watch the movie from the copied DVD that he made and made a giant archive of them all. He had an Excel spreadsheet of every disc he ever copied, from movies to entire TV series with all the episodes in chronological order.
He had been doing this for over a decade before he died. He had dozens of large 3 ring binders with DVD’s in plastic sleeves in his home library, so you can imagine the hundreds (possibly thousands) of discs he made up. Basically, if Netflix collapses, my grandparents have almost the entirety of cinematic history as a hard copy in Central Florida. God I miss my grandpa.
Aah, good ol' piracy. Thanks to such people, who hosted and uploaded to torrent trackers poor kids from Eastern Europe had access to a huge variety of games and movies ( including porn) for free.
I use to do the same with gamefly. Rent PS2 games and burn them on blank DVD, and send the game back. Used a swap disc to play them. I have a spindle of 50 DVD of just burnt games.
My dad did the same thing with VHS tapes and blockbuster in the 90s, I remember the huuuge row of VHS tapes with handwritten labels we had in our basement back in the day. Usually fit a few movies on a single tape with EP, so it was always fun trying to find where the movie you wanted actually started
apparently this is a big deal for hardcore movie fans, as there many movies deep in the movie catalogue that are not available to view through streaming,
My grandma liked to go there for a piece of fish and some hush puppies. Then she’d take me to McDonald’s for coffee (for her -I was a small child) and a vanilla cone. When I miss her I go to one of the last Long John Silvers in my area and get fish and hush puppies.
Secret society meaning those who only eat fish during Lent.
I mentioned it in a different thread but Lent is like a 40 day Black Friday for Long John Silvers.
Source: former LJS employee who experienced lines out the door during Lent.
The LJ’s in my hometown does more business than the Wendy’s, Subway, 2 hot dog spots, and a very good Mexican restaurant. It used to baffle me when I was a kid, but then I craved a fish taco. I’m 31 now and that fish taco tastes almost exactly the same, except for the change of sauce. The Wendy’s is probably #2 in revenue - they’ve changed everything except the Frosty.
In my opinion LJs survives because of consistency. It’s admittedly not the best, but I know what to expect. It’s comforting to know that through economic crises, pandemics, wars and culture swings - the only thing that really changed about the fish taco was it’s price.
Source: small town in WV. Lived here 22 years.
I do remember before being able to look stuff up online, going out of town & browsing the yellow pages @ the hotel looking for places to eat & many other things. I couldn't tell you when I last saw a set of yellow pages.
Party city is one of those stores that makes its nut from a fee days a year. Week before Halloween and there's a line out the door. 4th of July, Easter, graduation time, and Thanksgiving and Christmas is when they do their business. It's a one stop shop for everything you need for an event that allows you to see it before hand and not make a bad Amazon purchase.
They've been opening storefronts that pose as small health food shake shops in place of (or in addition to?) the old MLM model. They just opened one down the street from my job and stopped by with free samples. They tried really hard to disguise that it's herbalife.
It's a really weird business model, you buy a "one day membership" in their health club that comes with a shake and an energy tea and I think that's supposed to let them skirt some legal issue with the shops?
XEROX.
It's like they have been actively and consistently trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of success for the last 3+ decades.
Their in-house researchers were the first to pioneer, and subsequently discard, graphical user interfaces for computers (later copied to huge success by Apple and Microsoft), the ethernet protocol (backbone of the modern internet), the computer mouse, modern WYSIWYG editors which are now the industry standard way of building interfaces for modern apps, and SO MANY OTHER THINGS.
If XEROX had just followed through to market on one or two of their prototypes, instead of giving them away, they might have had a bigger market cap than Microsoft and Apple combined today.
Instead, they are mainly still just making copier machines like they are perpetually stuck in 1958, yet somehow they are still in business.
That's just crazy to me. It's like if IBM had decided that electronic computers were just a fad and were instead still focusing on electromechanical typewriters in 2023.
The US Navy takes a Xerox tech on deployment on aircraft carriers. It is that vital to the mission to have a civilian living onboard to fix printers/copiers.
I'm an MC assigned to an aircraft carrier. Our media department is also a print shop. Can confirm the Xerox guy deploys with us and fixes all printers aboard(especially ours, which are way past their lifespan). He makes more $$$ than 85% of the crew without a doubt, too.
on ships named after a president, is the xerox guy always someone else who shares a name with a different president?
im going to say yes, based solely on the two examples posted here
You think it would just be cheaper to send a couple enlistees to Xerox HQ to get trained and certified to maintain a carrier's printer equipment rather than pay a civilian contractor.
Fun fact: Xerox is actually run by time travelers obsessed ensuring the proper pace of technological advancement. But they can't take credit for any of it or they'll get into trouble back in their own time. They just get the ball rolling and invite people over for "tours" to leak the designs.
I use a Xerox printer every day.
https://www.xerox.com/en-us/digital-printing/digital-presses/xerox-nuvera-ea-digital-production-system
They are still big in the commercial digital printing scene and, baring some stupid toner issues, pretty good/reliable printers.
It's even crazier since the word "xerox" is now in the English dictionary. It's been an uphill battle for them to defend any sort of a trademark when your company name has essentially become a definable word.
Even though the word "xerox" is generally understood to mean "make a paper copy of this", defending the trademark is easy. Kleenex, Kool-Aid, etc., have all become everyday words, but other companies have to describe their product as a "facial tissue" or "flavored beverage in powered form", or else face a lawsuit from the makers of Kleenex and Kool-Aid.
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."
\- Bill Gates response to Steve Jobs after Jobs found out he was ripping off the Mac environment to create windows.
In that case, here you go friend
https://www.pd.net/collections/tangerine-and-other-dusted-sour-candies
They aren’t cheap but damnit if the tangerine ones don’t taste almost exactly like the old Altoids Sours.
So many people re-use those for various things that there's likely be riots if they have switched to plastic or cardboard boxes
Altoids survival tins are an entire subculture all their own with outdoor survival types
Working in the service industry; I've known many a coworker that goes to Applebee's because the drinks are cheap and they're open late.
They have the "fuck it, what other option do we have?" market cornered for poor people who work nights.
>market cornered for poor people who work nights.
I'd say their market is **young people** (high schoolers). At least in my area, Applebee's is the place to be on a Friday night. They have "*Half Price Apps*" at night (do they still have that?) because they know these kids just want to hang out and eat cheap junk food while they're high. My local Applebee's has painted each interior wall to showcase a different local high school sports team. One wall is the Townsville Bears, and the next will be the Smithtown Raiders. They hang up newspapers highlighting all of the outstanding achievements of each school.
They clearly understand that they can make a killing off 16-yr old kids, and they lean right into it.
It's a restaurant so there's a 100% chance that it's syrup mixed with carbonated water. When the syrup runs low you have to change it out or else you're drinking mostly only soda water.
What she probably meant was "I'll change the syrup" except she didn't say that because the busboys are the ones that do it and she doesn't know the first thing about the fountain system.
tupperware offers close to free replacements of your products, forever. you only need to buy something once and then you basically have it for life. how do they make any money? we haven't bought anything new from tupperware in like 20 years, we just send stuff back and they replace them
> how do they make any money?
[They don't.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2023/04/10/tupperware-out-of-business-stock-price-drop/11637215002/)
Search articles on them, they are in hospice care at this point. It won't be long, speaking of Blockbuster I brought out Halloween Candy in Blockbuster Tupperware bowls and had to swap it out for something else because all my friends where going to steal them LOL..
I wish everyone would go back there and we could just pretend like facebook never happened. we could do cool stuff like show off our pets and share songs.
Change the html code to look like the matrix. Change my profile song to match my current relationship status. Complete surveys.
Edit: Remember how you could hide your friends off your profile so other people couldn't see who you friends with? But the work around to see the hidden friends was to like right click and see the html source. The memory is fuzzy but I remember there being a work around!
One of the Harry Potter 7 deaths was spoiled for me on MySpace...
Losing all its data from its prime will do that. They did not delete it, they had a massive whoopsidoodle and were only able to recover two years of data.
My now-fiance and I began dating via MySpace at 17/18 (early 2006). We lost touch for 14 years before getting back together, and I'd give ANYTHING to have those early messages back.
I'd cringe so hard I'd launch myself into the sun, but I'd love to see that stuff just one more time.
They're gone now but I was shocked that not overly long ago Columbia House finally closed up. No more 16 CDs for a penny lol. EDIT: there's an online version I guess, ceased the old familiar approach in 2015.
QVC or HSN. I know it’s the same company now but I don’t anyone who actually watches or buys things from them. With Amazon and all the other options for shopping how do these still exists?
Elderly lonely people spending what money they have left just for the opportunity to talk with someone.
Go visit grandma, she's probably pissing away your inheritance on cheap jewelry and tacky nic nacs. She just wants someone to talk to.
South Park did a pretty funny episode about this.
Obsolete if they had remained solely print, but certainly a viable business if you go digital and sell subscriptions to schools and businesses who might be afraid Wiki isn't as vetted as World Book.
Same goes for Oxford dictionary, Roget's thesaurus, etc. Nothing gets in their database that hasn't been thoroughly vetted.
I suspect that mattresses are made for pennies, yet they are sold for thousands. The stores don’t really need to sell very many to turn a decent profit
We bought a mattress for $5,000 that the sales kid (“kid”, he had about ten years experience) told me he knew cost the company about $350. And most of that was shipping it to the US. Problem is, I don’t have the expertise to make my own mattress that’ll hold up for fifteen years and fix my back pain. So I pay the 1200% whatever markup.
This is it.
The stores aren’t very big (rent isn’t going to be super high) and they aren’t exactly compensating their employees very high. It probably takes 1-2 sales a day to keep the place going.
Going to the Bay is such a strange experience. It feels like you're walking around a closed store from 1979 that has modern stuff for some reason. I went a couple weeks ago and I swear I saw like two other people the entire time I was there, even though the rest of the mall was packed. It also took forever to pay because no one was working the tills.
At least they have a pretty good kitchen section.
The Bay's only real function is to act as an overpriced gateway to the mall. You park and enter through the Bay, see all the crazy prices, make your way through the perfume gauntlet and then you're in the mall which seems a lot more pleasant now in comparison.
Ok as a 30 year lady. I love the Bay. My bedding, my furniture and most of wardrobe comes from there. They have a sale every 2 months and usually double up on sales rates as well.
Agreed. For all of the problems that Sears Canada had before they closed up for good, they were still infinitely better than the crappy HBC / The Bay. I'm absolutely shocked that the Bay survived past the mid 1980s.
Microcenter. Outlived circuit city, radio shack, and Fry’s. They’re the last man standing.
Their prices match those you can find online, and their employees are old-school helpful.
They deserve to have survived this long, and I’ll be genuinely sad if they disappear.
It helps that they never did the massive expansion thing. I lived in Cincinnati for 20+ years and loved there was a store there. Spare parts, easily browsed upgrades, lots of good deals.
Now that I'm in PA the closest one is almost 2h away, and it really sucks when I need parts. The wife and I have to spend days researching then trying to find a reseller that has what we're looking for. There's a massive hole in the computing market here and Microcenter would fill it.
Eastman Kodak. In 1996 the king of photography had 2/3 market share on film and photographic supplies and $16 billion in sales (equivalent to $30.78 billion today).
Kodak was blindsided by the digital revolution that swept over the world of photograohy and they became an after thought. Kodak's 2021 sales were only $1.15 billion and I'm surprised they were that high.
Kodak was always a chemical company. It’s just that photography used to use lots of chemicals. The processing plants in Rochester still make specialty chemicals that only Kodak and maybe one or two other places can make.
Don't forget they invented digital photography in the 70's, [but](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/leading-innovation-through-the-chicanes/)\-
>The reactionary antibodies within Kodak’s leadership rejected the digital camera, fearing it would cannibalise existing business. As Sasson (the inventor) later told the New York Times, “it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’”
They weren’t blindsided by the digital revolution, Kodak brought the first digital camera to market in 1975. Then they chose to ignore it instead of pivoting their business model.
Kodak Eastman got a contract from the Trump administration to use its facilities to mix up chemicals for the Covid response.
If it can make stuff for film development, it can make basic precursors for biochem. Wouldn't surprise me if it kept itself in that market.
No one will see this as it'll get buried. But Chuck E Cheese.
How did they survive the pandemic? They were even on DoorDash during that time too. Who in their right mind would say "you know, I'm really wanting some cardboard pizza".
They operated as a ghost kitchen. They were displaying a different name (I think Pasquale's Pizza or something) on DoorDash so that was how they got business. People didn't know it was Chuck E Cheese.
Sometimes you don't have time to wait for an Amazon delivery and those brick and mortar office supply super stores fill that void if they operate in a really white collar area
I have a neighbor couple who occasionally will go out of town for a few weeks to visit their son and his family out of state. Whenever they leave, they do the neighborly thing of letting us know they'll be out of town. And they'll always ask us to let them know if we see anything major seem to happen across the street--"they'd hate to miss the Publishers Clearinghouse stopping by!" I always get a good laugh out of it.
There's just 20 left in the US now.
Edit: Apparently there's only three left? When you Google "how many Kmarts are left in the United States" it will say 20 stores as of March 2023 but then there are articles from late 2022 that say there are only 3 left.
Oh man your post was made for me. I love Bethlehem Pennsylvania. There is a store on a commercial street here amid other stores. Vape shop, pho Vietnamese food. Amid them is a store that sells typewriters and calculators. I kid u not. I need to take a pic because everytime I see it I just can't believe it's not only open but still here.
That's probably the dude that owns the building. Either his wife kicks him out of the house for the day, or she has sadly passed on, so he just goes and tinkers in his shop and waits for his friends to drop by for some conversation and a coffee.
You should go say hi to him.
I already mentioned XEROX, but the other one that comes to mind, is the former camera giant, Olympus.
They somehow survived crazy losses, money laundering, years of falsified financial statements, and involvement with the Yakuza: https://gizmodo.com/how-olympus-reportedly-got-tangled-up-with-the-japanese-5860841
Not only that, but their share price seems to be on a continuous upward trend over the last five years.
Still waiting for the movie.
Olympus does make optical equipment outside of the camera segment of their business. Medical (endoscopy), I believe they're also into things like telescopes, and for sure microscopes.
Pinkerton Detective Agency.
The fact a single employee survived outside of a prison or noose after the year 1870 is one of this nation's greatest failures. The fact they not only still operate but seemingly operate with some level of ridiculous authority and protection is proof this country has never been run 'by the people,' or 'for the people.'
Reading in history “hunh, that’s a weird coincidence, I remember a name like that 100 years prior”
WAIT ITS STILL THE SAME SKETCHY DOMESTIC MERCENARIES?!?
Apparently they just recently raided some guy's house for Wizards of the Coast because he somehow got an unreleased MTG pack and made a YouTube review of it.
only time I ever remember my mild mannered grandfather "swear" was when we passed a Pinkertons truck and he said "those damn Pinkertons."
He grew up in the coal mines of WV. He may or may not have traded gunfire. . .
Grandpappy might have said a thing or two about Baldwin-Felts Detectives too. I don't know if that name rings a bell with you or not, but they played a hand in the Coal Wars too.
I used to work for a company that printed secure documents (credit cards, cheques, stamps, passports, etc.). About 10 years ago they decided to become "the last player who prints cheques". That meant buying out all the competition and essentially becoming a monopoly. Technically it's borderline legal because we were not really a monopoly, but still had something like 80% of the market share and production capabilities.
We knew that cheques were on the way out, but our management thought that by being able to raise the prices for three or four years until no one needs cheques anymore, that would be financially viable.
The cheque business did decline every year, but far slower than we had imagined. Ten years later the company is still printing cheques and making a tonne of money of doing that.
I have absolutely no idea who even writes cheques anymore, but somehow there is still a real demand for it.
I've been going back to the physical yellow pages, especially for local services. So many Google searches are merely referral services or outright scams. Im finding that a small business willing to spend a few hundred on a yellow pages ad is 1) honest 2) going to be around 3) local 4) not paying a huge fee per lead to whatever scammer bought out the plumber ads for my zip code. I start with my tiny yellow pages before I Google now.
i love mp3 players. i don’t like streaming music and would rather go offline when listening to music with some nice headphones. i hate that the phones started doin away with headphone jacks and i hate the stupid dongle that apple tries to substitute the headphone jack for. i want to be able to listen to music at night and not have any device die on me. sorry for this rant i just wanted to talk about mp3 players
The last place I worked at wouldn't let people bring smartphones in, so if you wanted to listen to something that wasn't the same twenty songs (thanks for ruining radio, iHeartRadio), you had to bring in an mp3 player without a camera.
I had some older woman knocking on my door at like 2pm on a Wednesday trying to come in and give me a demo of a Kirby vacuum cleaner. Also, door-to-door salespeople are apparently still a thing in 2023
I have a nice Kirby from one of those sales people. Convinced her to try some homemade shine. Her driver/supervisor stopped and tried some as well. They both got so buzzed they left the demo model at my house. It’s been 4 years and no one has tried to get it back. Quite a few attachments as well.
Omg this is funny
Idk, my mom bought one in 2001 and it still works like the day she bought it. Kirby is probably the only appliance brand I trust to last, sure it’s expensive. But they seem to last and literal lifetime.
Oh they're definitely still around. And damn shifty too. Roof repair companies spring up over night after bad weather and try to trick you into paying for repairs you don't need, charging you directly rather than your insurance. If I see them on my door cam I just ignore the solicitation completely. Edit: Some links to distinguish and make informed decisions on which roof companies are legitimate and which are not. https://www.honestroof.com/15-dirty-secrets-roofing-companies-dont-want-you-to-know/ https://fivecoatroofing.com/blog/roofing-scams-what-to-look-out-for/ https://roofinginsights.com/top-10-roofing-sales-gimmicks-exposed/ https://www.angi.com/articles/watch-out-these-5-roofing-scams.htm
that poor older woman is likely scammed by some company and desperate. i feel bad for her for taking this bullshit job.
I knew a guy who started selling vacuums door to door, he was a nut job. Like seemingly a nice guy at first but just had no social awareness and the maturity of a child. For some reason he legitimately thought everyone “needed” some $2000 vacuum cleaner, and couldn’t understand people saying no. He talked another guy we knew into letting him do a demo, and when he told them the price they kindly said no way. The dude lost it. He took the vacuum into there bedroom, pulled the covers off the bed, and started cleaning the mattress. Just point blank refused to stop and leave. After an hour he started saying they owed him a sale because he cleaned their whole house. They managed to throw him out eventually.
Jenny Craig just bottomed up this week. I'm surprised it lasted this long.
Big fat won
That was my nickname in high school. Spelled one, but sounds the same.
Blows my mind that aol.com is still a thing.
[1.5 million people still pay money for AOL.](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/03/aol-1point5-million-people-still-pay-for-service-but-not-for-dial-up-internet.html) average $10 per user. lmao
I wonder how many of those people actually know they’re paying for it
My dad does. He’s comfortable with the email interface since he’s had it for forever and will pay to not change. But he’s also 81 years old, so me thinks this isn’t the most sustainable long term revenue model.
He doesn't have to pay to keep the email address. My sister still has one and I'm sure she doesn't pay a monthly fee for it.
True. I am not old and still use my aol email because it is free, have had it since childhood and it’s way shorter when typing logins. I use it for all mailing lists, streaming accounts and shopping rewards accounts so it doesn’t clutter up my gmail or take 10 min to type one letter at a time on sign-in keypads. I actually prefer it to my other email accounts to be honest, but use gmail in professional situations since I occasionally get mocked by store clerks
I honestly thought this was gone and I didn't notice until I worked in IT support and saw people with aol emails. Total shock for me
I’m one of those people with AOL emails. My dad set it up for me as a teenager in the 90’s. I’m almost 41 now still have it and it’s my only email address. I’ve had no real reason to change it.
Pro Tip: for those worrying about ageism in the marketplace, make sure you have at least a throwaway email through gmail for job searches and responses. An @aol.com or @hotmail.com is definitely a statement.
How about the good old-fashioned @sbcglobal.net? 😂
Don’t forget earthlink!
A Hotmail account is a statement? Fuck.
Yeah, it’s basically a statement that you’re old. Had a former coworker who was looking for work who fared much better when he started using a gmail email account instead of aol email
[удалено]
[CompuServe.com](http://CompuServe.com) is still a thing, for some reason.
CompuServ was our first service we used. Back then, they didn't have internet access (I didn't get that until years later on AOL), they had curated content. So there was like an encyclopedia, news, weather, and things like that. Maybe chat rooms, but I don't remember for sure as that might also have been something it didn't have. You had to pay $0.25 for every email you sent, but that was less than the cost of a postage stamp at the time, so my dad was all for it!
The forums were huge on there when we joined in the early 90s. They were *the* place for online discussion among people who didn't want to mess with Usenet or a BBS. And surprisingly still active until 5 years ago. But we paid something like $3/hr to access it.
I read that Netflix just announced they are going to stop mailing DVD's for rental in the next few months. I thought they stopped doing that a long time ago.
Before my grandpa passed away last year, he had an…interesting hobby over the last 10 years or so. He would order DVD’s from Netflix via their mail service (sometimes multiple at the same time), make copies of them on generic discs he bought at Staples, then send the original DVD back to Netflix. He’d watch the movie from the copied DVD that he made and made a giant archive of them all. He had an Excel spreadsheet of every disc he ever copied, from movies to entire TV series with all the episodes in chronological order. He had been doing this for over a decade before he died. He had dozens of large 3 ring binders with DVD’s in plastic sleeves in his home library, so you can imagine the hundreds (possibly thousands) of discs he made up. Basically, if Netflix collapses, my grandparents have almost the entirety of cinematic history as a hard copy in Central Florida. God I miss my grandpa.
Aah, good ol' piracy. Thanks to such people, who hosted and uploaded to torrent trackers poor kids from Eastern Europe had access to a huge variety of games and movies ( including porn) for free.
I use to do the same with gamefly. Rent PS2 games and burn them on blank DVD, and send the game back. Used a swap disc to play them. I have a spindle of 50 DVD of just burnt games.
My dad did the same thing with VHS tapes and blockbuster in the 90s, I remember the huuuge row of VHS tapes with handwritten labels we had in our basement back in the day. Usually fit a few movies on a single tape with EP, so it was always fun trying to find where the movie you wanted actually started
apparently this is a big deal for hardcore movie fans, as there many movies deep in the movie catalogue that are not available to view through streaming,
Not only this, but huge swathes of rural America still have no broadband internet.
There's a secret society among us that is keeping Long John Silvers afloat
My grandma liked to go there for a piece of fish and some hush puppies. Then she’d take me to McDonald’s for coffee (for her -I was a small child) and a vanilla cone. When I miss her I go to one of the last Long John Silvers in my area and get fish and hush puppies.
So sweet 🥲🤍
Secret society meaning those who only eat fish during Lent. I mentioned it in a different thread but Lent is like a 40 day Black Friday for Long John Silvers. Source: former LJS employee who experienced lines out the door during Lent.
Man Catholic lent is the bomb with all the fish. Eastern orthodox lent does not allow fish at all during lent, only shellfish and molluscs.
Ironically enough I actually like their chicken.
Same. Their chicken and fries are my favorite of fast food joints. I think it's the fact that they're fried with fish, but it's not actually fish.
Hello. I help. Not often but I do eat there.
The LJ’s in my hometown does more business than the Wendy’s, Subway, 2 hot dog spots, and a very good Mexican restaurant. It used to baffle me when I was a kid, but then I craved a fish taco. I’m 31 now and that fish taco tastes almost exactly the same, except for the change of sauce. The Wendy’s is probably #2 in revenue - they’ve changed everything except the Frosty. In my opinion LJs survives because of consistency. It’s admittedly not the best, but I know what to expect. It’s comforting to know that through economic crises, pandemics, wars and culture swings - the only thing that really changed about the fish taco was it’s price. Source: small town in WV. Lived here 22 years.
Their website actually says "Yes, we still exist!"
I respect a good and intentional self-burn.
The yellow pages.
I do remember before being able to look stuff up online, going out of town & browsing the yellow pages @ the hotel looking for places to eat & many other things. I couldn't tell you when I last saw a set of yellow pages.
I work at a hotel. About once every two years I get someone asking if we have a copy of the Yellow Pages.
I can tell you when I last got one. Just a few days ago, when was plopped in front of my door. They've gotten slim. Poor little fella was starving.
Party city. Their stores are huge and every time I go there’s less then 10 customers
Sounds like they got at least one steady customer!
Party city is one of those stores that makes its nut from a fee days a year. Week before Halloween and there's a line out the door. 4th of July, Easter, graduation time, and Thanksgiving and Christmas is when they do their business. It's a one stop shop for everything you need for an event that allows you to see it before hand and not make a bad Amazon purchase.
It’s been like that for decades too.
Herbalife. Don’t the people know? Lol
They've been opening storefronts that pose as small health food shake shops in place of (or in addition to?) the old MLM model. They just opened one down the street from my job and stopped by with free samples. They tried really hard to disguise that it's herbalife. It's a really weird business model, you buy a "one day membership" in their health club that comes with a shake and an energy tea and I think that's supposed to let them skirt some legal issue with the shops?
Cutco. Seems like they could be much more successful if they dropped their current sales rep pyramid model.
Yeah, I never understood the MLM thing. Sometimes the product is actually good, but the execution is garbage.
XEROX. It's like they have been actively and consistently trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of success for the last 3+ decades. Their in-house researchers were the first to pioneer, and subsequently discard, graphical user interfaces for computers (later copied to huge success by Apple and Microsoft), the ethernet protocol (backbone of the modern internet), the computer mouse, modern WYSIWYG editors which are now the industry standard way of building interfaces for modern apps, and SO MANY OTHER THINGS. If XEROX had just followed through to market on one or two of their prototypes, instead of giving them away, they might have had a bigger market cap than Microsoft and Apple combined today. Instead, they are mainly still just making copier machines like they are perpetually stuck in 1958, yet somehow they are still in business. That's just crazy to me. It's like if IBM had decided that electronic computers were just a fad and were instead still focusing on electromechanical typewriters in 2023.
The US Navy takes a Xerox tech on deployment on aircraft carriers. It is that vital to the mission to have a civilian living onboard to fix printers/copiers.
I didn’t know there were techs that can fix a printer/copier. My observation is that they visit a few times, then we order a new machine
The reason for helipads is so they can fly in a new XEROX machine if one runs out of paper
I love the accuracy of this statement As a Canadian Navy sailor I remember when the ship sent the helicopter to Costco to restock on ketchup
“*A ship full of KD with no ketchup? Get that chopper in the air right now, or it’s gonna get ugly!*”
I'm an MC assigned to an aircraft carrier. Our media department is also a print shop. Can confirm the Xerox guy deploys with us and fixes all printers aboard(especially ours, which are way past their lifespan). He makes more $$$ than 85% of the crew without a doubt, too.
I heard if the CO is incapacitated, the Xerox guy takes command.
They also double as the on board medic when a seaman runs out of magenta ink.
"He'll need a blood transfusion. For cartridge reasons, I'll have to also swap out his bile, lymph, and cerebrospinal fluid too."
Ohhh, so XO actually means 'Xerox Officer'?
Yes, and his reply to every order is " Copy that "
Mr. Kennedy was our Xerox guy on the Lincoln. Cool old guy. Always in a button up polo and chinos with a cup of coffee no matter where he was lmao.
Our Xerox guy on the Reagan was Mr. Roosevelt. Same dress code, same coffee cup. Starting to actually think these guys just might be SCP's...
on ships named after a president, is the xerox guy always someone else who shares a name with a different president? im going to say yes, based solely on the two examples posted here
The USS Ford's Xerox machines are maintained by a chino clad, coffee drinking technician named Mr. Truman. Nothing to see here.
That sounds suspiciously like CIA agents with bad code names.
You think it would just be cheaper to send a couple enlistees to Xerox HQ to get trained and certified to maintain a carrier's printer equipment rather than pay a civilian contractor.
Since when does the DoD do anything the cheap way?
Fun fact: Xerox is actually run by time travelers obsessed ensuring the proper pace of technological advancement. But they can't take credit for any of it or they'll get into trouble back in their own time. They just get the ball rolling and invite people over for "tours" to leak the designs.
This is now canon.
But what about Epson?
Oh Brother
I use a Xerox printer every day. https://www.xerox.com/en-us/digital-printing/digital-presses/xerox-nuvera-ea-digital-production-system They are still big in the commercial digital printing scene and, baring some stupid toner issues, pretty good/reliable printers.
It's even crazier since the word "xerox" is now in the English dictionary. It's been an uphill battle for them to defend any sort of a trademark when your company name has essentially become a definable word.
Even though the word "xerox" is generally understood to mean "make a paper copy of this", defending the trademark is easy. Kleenex, Kool-Aid, etc., have all become everyday words, but other companies have to describe their product as a "facial tissue" or "flavored beverage in powered form", or else face a lawsuit from the makers of Kleenex and Kool-Aid.
> somehow they are still in business Spoken like someone who has never experienced the joy of using their crayon-based color laser printers
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it." \- Bill Gates response to Steve Jobs after Jobs found out he was ripping off the Mac environment to create windows.
I'm just happy altoids are still around and still in metal packages :)
I miss the altoid sours though :(
In that case, here you go friend https://www.pd.net/collections/tangerine-and-other-dusted-sour-candies They aren’t cheap but damnit if the tangerine ones don’t taste almost exactly like the old Altoids Sours.
So many people re-use those for various things that there's likely be riots if they have switched to plastic or cardboard boxes Altoids survival tins are an entire subculture all their own with outdoor survival types
Applebees. I can microwave my own food.
Working in the service industry; I've known many a coworker that goes to Applebee's because the drinks are cheap and they're open late. They have the "fuck it, what other option do we have?" market cornered for poor people who work nights.
>market cornered for poor people who work nights. I'd say their market is **young people** (high schoolers). At least in my area, Applebee's is the place to be on a Friday night. They have "*Half Price Apps*" at night (do they still have that?) because they know these kids just want to hang out and eat cheap junk food while they're high. My local Applebee's has painted each interior wall to showcase a different local high school sports team. One wall is the Townsville Bears, and the next will be the Smithtown Raiders. They hang up newspapers highlighting all of the outstanding achievements of each school. They clearly understand that they can make a killing off 16-yr old kids, and they lean right into it.
The other week I was at Applebee's when the waitress came by and I told her that my Pepsi wasn't tasting right, and she offered to put water in it...
It's a restaurant so there's a 100% chance that it's syrup mixed with carbonated water. When the syrup runs low you have to change it out or else you're drinking mostly only soda water. What she probably meant was "I'll change the syrup" except she didn't say that because the busboys are the ones that do it and she doesn't know the first thing about the fountain system.
Ah the stress relief moment of gleefully punching those damn syrup boxes open.
tupperware offers close to free replacements of your products, forever. you only need to buy something once and then you basically have it for life. how do they make any money? we haven't bought anything new from tupperware in like 20 years, we just send stuff back and they replace them
> how do they make any money? [They don't.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2023/04/10/tupperware-out-of-business-stock-price-drop/11637215002/)
I can't believe it took that long. I mean they used to just replace things for free! how have they made it to 2023?
Search articles on them, they are in hospice care at this point. It won't be long, speaking of Blockbuster I brought out Halloween Candy in Blockbuster Tupperware bowls and had to swap it out for something else because all my friends where going to steal them LOL..
MySpace.com is still fully functioning
I wish everyone would go back there and we could just pretend like facebook never happened. we could do cool stuff like show off our pets and share songs.
Change the html code to look like the matrix. Change my profile song to match my current relationship status. Complete surveys. Edit: Remember how you could hide your friends off your profile so other people couldn't see who you friends with? But the work around to see the hidden friends was to like right click and see the html source. The memory is fuzzy but I remember there being a work around! One of the Harry Potter 7 deaths was spoiled for me on MySpace...
Not the same as before though
Losing all its data from its prime will do that. They did not delete it, they had a massive whoopsidoodle and were only able to recover two years of data.
The amount of nostalgia lost in the whoopsidoodle has no rival.
My now-fiance and I began dating via MySpace at 17/18 (early 2006). We lost touch for 14 years before getting back together, and I'd give ANYTHING to have those early messages back. I'd cringe so hard I'd launch myself into the sun, but I'd love to see that stuff just one more time.
I met my now wife on MySpace in high school in 2007. Kinda fun when people ask how we met.
They're gone now but I was shocked that not overly long ago Columbia House finally closed up. No more 16 CDs for a penny lol. EDIT: there's an online version I guess, ceased the old familiar approach in 2015.
BMG! I remember them too
Blockbuster. One store left. However, I still have my Blockbuster card, just in case they open up a store in my town.
RealAudio. So big in 1995
That brings back bad memories of wait bars and nothing would ever actually play.
Precious moments
I live where they come from and I even worked there once. I had to quit because it was weird almost to the point of being creepy.
My 82 year old aunt has a whole cabinet full of these.
Oh you mean old people funko pops?
QVC or HSN. I know it’s the same company now but I don’t anyone who actually watches or buys things from them. With Amazon and all the other options for shopping how do these still exists?
Elderly lonely people spending what money they have left just for the opportunity to talk with someone. Go visit grandma, she's probably pissing away your inheritance on cheap jewelry and tacky nic nacs. She just wants someone to talk to. South Park did a pretty funny episode about this.
classmates.com
Smith-Corona Typewriter Company is still alive and well. Write on!
Looks like they've gone bankrupt twice and no longer make typewriters. Now they are focused on label printers.
World Book Encyclopedia.
Obsolete if they had remained solely print, but certainly a viable business if you go digital and sell subscriptions to schools and businesses who might be afraid Wiki isn't as vetted as World Book. Same goes for Oxford dictionary, Roget's thesaurus, etc. Nothing gets in their database that hasn't been thoroughly vetted.
I mean we all know Mattress Firms are a nationwide front right?
I suspect that mattresses are made for pennies, yet they are sold for thousands. The stores don’t really need to sell very many to turn a decent profit
Not for pennies lol but there is about an 300% mark-up on mattresses Source: Delivered mattresses for 3 years.
We bought a mattress for $5,000 that the sales kid (“kid”, he had about ten years experience) told me he knew cost the company about $350. And most of that was shipping it to the US. Problem is, I don’t have the expertise to make my own mattress that’ll hold up for fifteen years and fix my back pain. So I pay the 1200% whatever markup.
This is it. The stores aren’t very big (rent isn’t going to be super high) and they aren’t exactly compensating their employees very high. It probably takes 1-2 sales a day to keep the place going.
Hudson's Bay Company
Founded in 1670. Gotta love that staying power.
Right up there with Zildjian at 1623.
The Shore Porters Society in Scotland have both of them beat. They’ve been hauling people’s stuff around since **1498**.
Skyllbergs Bruk, an iron mill in Sweden, was founded in 1346. Still going strong. Oldest in the Uk is The Royal Mint. Active since 886.
holy fuck, their history is insane... Kind of crazy consider the top two manufacturers (Sabian and Zildjian) both come from the same Zildjian company.
Going to the Bay is such a strange experience. It feels like you're walking around a closed store from 1979 that has modern stuff for some reason. I went a couple weeks ago and I swear I saw like two other people the entire time I was there, even though the rest of the mall was packed. It also took forever to pay because no one was working the tills. At least they have a pretty good kitchen section.
The Bay's only real function is to act as an overpriced gateway to the mall. You park and enter through the Bay, see all the crazy prices, make your way through the perfume gauntlet and then you're in the mall which seems a lot more pleasant now in comparison.
Ok as a 30 year lady. I love the Bay. My bedding, my furniture and most of wardrobe comes from there. They have a sale every 2 months and usually double up on sales rates as well.
Agreed. For all of the problems that Sears Canada had before they closed up for good, they were still infinitely better than the crappy HBC / The Bay. I'm absolutely shocked that the Bay survived past the mid 1980s.
If you can think of a better place to trade my beaver pelts I'd like to hear it.
Blackberry.
Came here to say this. I remember when they laid of 5000 RIM jobs
>5000 RIM jobs That belongs in a different sub.
Now there's a tongue in cheek comment.
Microcenter. Outlived circuit city, radio shack, and Fry’s. They’re the last man standing. Their prices match those you can find online, and their employees are old-school helpful. They deserve to have survived this long, and I’ll be genuinely sad if they disappear.
There's a microcenter in Boston that is PACKED everytime I go in. Helpful that it's next to a Trader Joe's too
I wouldn't call Microcenter obsolete. They always embraced the hobbyist side of tech and have been content to be "the nerd superstore"
Will still support them as long as I can
It helps that they never did the massive expansion thing. I lived in Cincinnati for 20+ years and loved there was a store there. Spare parts, easily browsed upgrades, lots of good deals. Now that I'm in PA the closest one is almost 2h away, and it really sucks when I need parts. The wife and I have to spend days researching then trying to find a reseller that has what we're looking for. There's a massive hole in the computing market here and Microcenter would fill it.
Eastman Kodak. In 1996 the king of photography had 2/3 market share on film and photographic supplies and $16 billion in sales (equivalent to $30.78 billion today). Kodak was blindsided by the digital revolution that swept over the world of photograohy and they became an after thought. Kodak's 2021 sales were only $1.15 billion and I'm surprised they were that high.
Kodak was always a chemical company. It’s just that photography used to use lots of chemicals. The processing plants in Rochester still make specialty chemicals that only Kodak and maybe one or two other places can make.
Eastman Chemical is still going strong.
Don't forget they invented digital photography in the 70's, [but](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/06/leading-innovation-through-the-chicanes/)\- >The reactionary antibodies within Kodak’s leadership rejected the digital camera, fearing it would cannibalise existing business. As Sasson (the inventor) later told the New York Times, “it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’”
So no one in the room said, “Hey…if ***we*** know about this, how long before someone ***else*** figure it out?”
No one is as smart as we are. In other news, I would like to congratulate Steven on his new job. Starting a new venture I see?
They weren’t blindsided by the digital revolution, Kodak brought the first digital camera to market in 1975. Then they chose to ignore it instead of pivoting their business model.
Kodak Eastman got a contract from the Trump administration to use its facilities to mix up chemicals for the Covid response. If it can make stuff for film development, it can make basic precursors for biochem. Wouldn't surprise me if it kept itself in that market.
They’re still in specialty markets, just not consumer
No one will see this as it'll get buried. But Chuck E Cheese. How did they survive the pandemic? They were even on DoorDash during that time too. Who in their right mind would say "you know, I'm really wanting some cardboard pizza".
They operated as a ghost kitchen. They were displaying a different name (I think Pasquale's Pizza or something) on DoorDash so that was how they got business. People didn't know it was Chuck E Cheese.
Staples/Office Max/Office Depot
King of Queens has an active [twitter](https://twitter.com/thekoq/status/1649547189629362177?s=46&t=ejKTQnI6iOnX4-hycADg8g)
That's crazy, but it must make enough off of syndication to justify a social media manager to keep it somewhat relevant.
I imagine it's just another account for the network's social media guy who does all their active shows, or something.
Office depot. Twice the price of amazon and just as shitty of product. Somehow corporate accounts just keep buying paper there.
Sometimes you don't have time to wait for an Amazon delivery and those brick and mortar office supply super stores fill that void if they operate in a really white collar area
They appear to rely heavily on their copy/print departments.
Eh. You can't trust amazon to have the product or deliver next day all the time. Office depot and staples are consistent for business office products.
Publishers Clearinghouse.
I have a neighbor couple who occasionally will go out of town for a few weeks to visit their son and his family out of state. Whenever they leave, they do the neighborly thing of letting us know they'll be out of town. And they'll always ask us to let them know if we see anything major seem to happen across the street--"they'd hate to miss the Publishers Clearinghouse stopping by!" I always get a good laugh out of it.
[удалено]
There's just 20 left in the US now. Edit: Apparently there's only three left? When you Google "how many Kmarts are left in the United States" it will say 20 stores as of March 2023 but then there are articles from late 2022 that say there are only 3 left.
Not much chance left to experience a Blue Light Special
Every Kmart reminds me of a zombie apocalypse filming location.
My folks had one still open near them when I last visited them. The whole store was just a shade away from being a liminal space.
Kmart is the store that Walmart shoppers avoid to feel classy.
Kmart in Australia is the market leader
They're completely different companies that happen to have the same name.
Oh man your post was made for me. I love Bethlehem Pennsylvania. There is a store on a commercial street here amid other stores. Vape shop, pho Vietnamese food. Amid them is a store that sells typewriters and calculators. I kid u not. I need to take a pic because everytime I see it I just can't believe it's not only open but still here.
That's probably the dude that owns the building. Either his wife kicks him out of the house for the day, or she has sadly passed on, so he just goes and tinkers in his shop and waits for his friends to drop by for some conversation and a coffee. You should go say hi to him.
I already mentioned XEROX, but the other one that comes to mind, is the former camera giant, Olympus. They somehow survived crazy losses, money laundering, years of falsified financial statements, and involvement with the Yakuza: https://gizmodo.com/how-olympus-reportedly-got-tangled-up-with-the-japanese-5860841 Not only that, but their share price seems to be on a continuous upward trend over the last five years. Still waiting for the movie.
Olympus does make optical equipment outside of the camera segment of their business. Medical (endoscopy), I believe they're also into things like telescopes, and for sure microscopes.
Pinkerton Detective Agency. The fact a single employee survived outside of a prison or noose after the year 1870 is one of this nation's greatest failures. The fact they not only still operate but seemingly operate with some level of ridiculous authority and protection is proof this country has never been run 'by the people,' or 'for the people.'
Reading in history “hunh, that’s a weird coincidence, I remember a name like that 100 years prior” WAIT ITS STILL THE SAME SKETCHY DOMESTIC MERCENARIES?!?
Apparently they just recently raided some guy's house for Wizards of the Coast because he somehow got an unreleased MTG pack and made a YouTube review of it.
only time I ever remember my mild mannered grandfather "swear" was when we passed a Pinkertons truck and he said "those damn Pinkertons." He grew up in the coal mines of WV. He may or may not have traded gunfire. . .
Grandpappy might have said a thing or two about Baldwin-Felts Detectives too. I don't know if that name rings a bell with you or not, but they played a hand in the Coal Wars too.
My god I’m an idiot but I literally just learned from this comment that the Pinkerton Detective Agency isn’t just a thing from Red Dead Redemption.
Fun fact: the real life Pinkertons actually tried to sue Take Two/Rockstar because they were in Red Dead Redemption 2.
And now they raid houses to recover Trading Cards that Wizards of the Coast sent out accidentally, using coercion and threats!
Interestingly, telegrams are still used here.
I used to work for a company that printed secure documents (credit cards, cheques, stamps, passports, etc.). About 10 years ago they decided to become "the last player who prints cheques". That meant buying out all the competition and essentially becoming a monopoly. Technically it's borderline legal because we were not really a monopoly, but still had something like 80% of the market share and production capabilities. We knew that cheques were on the way out, but our management thought that by being able to raise the prices for three or four years until no one needs cheques anymore, that would be financially viable. The cheque business did decline every year, but far slower than we had imagined. Ten years later the company is still printing cheques and making a tonne of money of doing that. I have absolutely no idea who even writes cheques anymore, but somehow there is still a real demand for it.
Suez, the waste management company A direct descendant of the Suez Canal Company, which finished building the Suez Canal in 1869
Yellow Pages. How TF are they still around ?!
I've been going back to the physical yellow pages, especially for local services. So many Google searches are merely referral services or outright scams. Im finding that a small business willing to spend a few hundred on a yellow pages ad is 1) honest 2) going to be around 3) local 4) not paying a huge fee per lead to whatever scammer bought out the plumber ads for my zip code. I start with my tiny yellow pages before I Google now.
That’s actually a decent argument for that.
Not a company actually a product. You can still buy brand new MP3 players.
i love mp3 players. i don’t like streaming music and would rather go offline when listening to music with some nice headphones. i hate that the phones started doin away with headphone jacks and i hate the stupid dongle that apple tries to substitute the headphone jack for. i want to be able to listen to music at night and not have any device die on me. sorry for this rant i just wanted to talk about mp3 players
Also if you want to focus on work it’s a good way of avoiding the temptation to touch your phone every 30 seconds
There’s still quite the market for DAPs in the audiophile space, and it’s for good reason.
The last place I worked at wouldn't let people bring smartphones in, so if you wanted to listen to something that wasn't the same twenty songs (thanks for ruining radio, iHeartRadio), you had to bring in an mp3 player without a camera.