Top 6 Tech Items or Services That Died in 2017

Tech Laid To Rest in 2017

Overall, 2017 was a pretty decent year for technology. It brought us Ryzens, Nintendo Switches and even sex dolls with AI. It also, however, signified the death of a lot of tech services. We, therefore, revisit some of these tech items to give them a brief eulogy. They do (mostly) deserve it after all.

Windows VISTA

In April Microsoft finally decided to stop whipping their dead horse and formally discontinued the operating system. The supposed successor to Windows XP simply never caught on, but there were many good reasons for that. Suffering from 2nd album syndrome, XP was just too good and Vista, while not unusable was simply not good. I bought a new system around the time Vista launched and (this is no lie) within 3 days I scrubbed it and installed XP.

AOL Instant Messenger

While I doubt many people were still using AOL instant messenger, it was, if nothing else, nostalgic. Taking us back to the days of getting ‘month free’ trials, AOL was for many of us older folks our first gateway to the internet. Discontinued on the 15th of December, AOL Instant Messenger is sadly no more.

Kinect

The gaming platform that was going to change the world, except, well… it didn’t. Either barely functional or requiring an entire lounge (and a big one at that) to work correctly. While the Kinect might have been a good idea it gets thrown onto the pile of excellent ideas implemented badly.

Lego Dimensions

While not officially dead, you can still buy it, the developer officially announced this year that no further updates or kits would be released for the gaming peripheral. Personally, I think people had had enough of this sort of thing after the whole Skylanders business. For myself, however, the biggest pity was that it wasn’t actually bad, but I think definitely overpriced.

iPod Shuffle/Nano, Groove Music and MP3 Technology (bundling all of these into number 5)

Apple decided that they no longer needed to bother with straight up MP3 players and in fairness, they might have had a point. The continuation came in the same year that the license for MP3 was not renewed, this basically means that it is now in the public domain. While the format might be still used its days at the forefront are no more.

In addition to all this, on a similar music-related note, Microsoft (again) also decided to call time on the Groove music subscription service. While I did not know anyone who subscribed to it, the player remains one of the best media resources for Windows users. In my opinion at least.

Net Neutrality (In the USA)

Yes, I know, there are people who go to great lengths to highlight that the loss of Net Neutrality is nothing to get upset about. I, however, beg to differ. Following its termination following a very underhanded FCC vote in the US everything went down party lines and in a 3-2 vote, regulations protecting Net Neutrality were removed.

Farewell to that tech which died!

So, a mixture of sad farewells and good riddance. Personally, my biggest loss of the year was Regular Show. (Spoiler Alert) – – – I miss you Pops!!!

What do you think? Will you miss any of the above? – Let us know in the comments!