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What other tech is so dumb like SMS and captcha but it's part of every day life?

4 points by user90131313 ↗ HN
I don't mean the beginning of these tech decades ago. Currently these are outdated and beyond annoying and stuipd tech but billions use them. We can replace most but instead we choose the pain for no logical reason. What else to add to this list? SMSof them is so unsecure that causes real problem too. Millions ignore it instead.

14 comments

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JohnFen
For all its flaws, SMS is awfully hard to adequately replace because it's universal. Any alternative quickly gets you into a quagmire of having to install multiple apps (itself a security problem) and having to keep track of which app to use for which person.
icedchai
Cookie warnings are pretty high up there.
theGeatZhopa
The mouse. Development of our Grandgrandfathers and still ubiquitous in usage.
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(comment deleted)
waterstar
Gesture recognition technology offers a modern alternative to the traditional mouse, enabling intuitive control through natural hand movements.
tuatoru
Light bulbs. Glary points of light, when it's more possible to have stripes or panels of diffuse light.
nicbou
In Germany, fax is still going strong, and it's unavoidable in certain industries.

RSS is also worth a mention.

al_borland
What’s wrong with RSS? Half the people hooked on social media could replace their never ending feed of suggestions with a few RSS feeds that would let them stay up to date without spend hours scrolling through nonsense.

RSS should be used more, not less.

mikewarot
Virus scanners, trying to enumerate all the "bad" code in the world.
Jugurtha
2FA (Two-Factor Authentication).

Using phone numbers for anything other than what they're useful for: phone calls.

thimabi
Airline ticketing systems are pretty outdated at this point, but they continue to be used for lack of a widespread alternative.