10 Things You Stopped Using This Decade

The 2010s brought dozens of disruptive inventions that reshaped our routines and sent traditional tech to the dump.

Here are some of the most well-loved things we tossed aside this decade.

Real, Off-The-Bone Meat

Veggie burgers had a resurgence, but the decade was really dominated by Beyond Meat Inc BYND — a plant-based alternative with the look, taste and texture of actual animal meat.

Cable & DVDs

Streaming emerged in the mid-2000s, but cord-cutting really started picking up steam this decade with Netflix, Inc. NFLX and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN investments in exclusive, original content, and with producers like Walt Disney Co. DIS rolling out their own platforms.

Checks And Plastic Cards

Venmo was founded in 2009, but it caught momentum in the ensuing years. Dozens of other electronic payment facilitators soon emerged — Apple Inc.'s AAPL Apple Pay in 2014, Alphabet Inc's GOOGL Google Pay in 2015, Zelle in 2017.

Wallets

The smartphone absorbed most functions of the wallet: it holds your cash, photos of your kids, your loyalty cards and your medical information. Any remaining necessities have been tucked into the sleeve wallet adhered to the back of your device.

Brick-And-Mortar Stores

The decade saw the death of Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Gymboree, Payless, Borders Books and dozens of other retailers. Some, like RadioShack, transitioned all operations online.

Others, like Sears, Forever 21 and Gander Mountain, downsized significantly.

The e-commerce threats to these companies emerged in the previous decade but caught fire in the 2010s.

Gasoline

This year was all about electric vehicles — or hybrids, at the very least. The first-ever EV actually came out in the 1800s, but the concept surged in popularity this decade with companies like Tesla Inc TSLA and models affordable to the average car buyer.

Cigarettes

Juul and other vaping manufacturers seized the decade and replaced cigarettes as the new cool. Yet recent legal battles may threaten this smoking substitute.

Personal Cars & Taxis

Lyft Inc LYFT and Uber Technologies Inc UBER launched ridesharing functions in 2013 to clear some space in your driveway. Uber hopes to replace some of its on-the-ground rides with aerial transport in the coming years.

Personal Assistants

This decade gave birth to Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant, which are at your beck and call around-the-clock. They make your shopping list, start your oven, time your pot roast, schedule your appointments and read your kids to sleep.

Binoculars

The consumer drone became popular in 2010 as a handy tool for scoping, scouting and photographing distant scenes.

Bonus: Cerebrum

Have you seen the way kids do school these days? They’ve got apps to solve their math problems with step-by-step instructions. This decade replaced actual cognitive skills with the memorization of a simple sequence: copy, paste, repeat.

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Photo via Wikimedia.