There’s a lot to complain about in Britain these days, from unreliable public transport to NHS waiting times to Liz Truss crashing the economy and driving up our mortgages.
But worse than the plain garbage are the things that are supposed to make life better, but in reality make it even more unbearable. On Reddit r/QuestionsUKuser Sweett_Stars asked the following question:
“Which ‘improvements’ have actually made life in Britain worse?”
And they had two suggestions to get everyone going…
1. The auto-flush toilets in most train stations and airports always flush while I’m sitting on them, which means I get sprayed with dirty water. Horrible. Maybe a touch button would be better, but the auto-flush is terrible.
2. The button you press on most UK trains to “lock” the toilet inexplicably failed to work on at least two occasions for me and the person outside was able to open the door. Now when I pee on the train I always get super tense because that digital button just doesn’t work.
And the answers will make your British upper lip tremble with anger.
1.
“Club card for every supermarket. It’s pretended that you get a special price, but actually that’s the normal price and if you don’t become a member you’re getting ripped off.”
–angosturacampari
2.
“Having to do almost everything on the phone or an app or something.”
Want to buy a train ticket? Unfortunately, we’ve closed the ticket offices. The machine is always broken, but we’ve put up lots of posters reminding you that if your phone doesn’t work with our half-baked app, we’ll fine you.
Can I speak to someone about this problem? So, you downloaded the app, read the entire website, and took a day off from sitting on hold on the phone?’
–Aerodynamic handshake
3.
“Well, I guess the sugar tax was supposed to make people’s lives better. But in my opinion, it has completely ruined every single popular soft drink. With the exception of Coca-Cola, they all now have the bitter, paracetamol-like taste of aspartame/acesulfame K.”
–NorthernSoul1977
4.
“Any appliance in the home, shower, refrigerator, dishwasher, door lock, etc. that requires an app and Wi-Fi to function.”
–_Rookwood_
5.
“Mechanical buttons and switches are being replaced by touchscreens, especially in cars.”
–67cken
6.
“Privatization. The justification is always that modernization, optimization and private sector-style management will improve services. That is never the case, but the money-hungry mediocrities who are put in charge always make a fortune.”
–Retractable head
7.
“QR codes for menus. I understood this during the Covid pandemic when nobody wanted dirty hands on their menus, but now that we’re back to some normality, I’d rather scroll through a menu in my hands than open different sections of a website on my phone.”
–Cumulus Crafts
8.
,,Customer feedback.
It used to be that only restaurants, plays and the like were rated. Now Morrison’s and B&Q are asking you to rate their staff’s performance today. Screw it, I stand by the right of retail staff not to do their job so well sometimes.’
–Harry Otter
9.
“Smart Motorways are not very intelligent and cause more accidents than they prevent.”
–GamerGuyAlly
10.
“Turn everything into a subscription. Sky TV or broadband is fine, but subscriptions for coffee? Food? Streaming without adverts and then create a second tier where ‘limited’ adverts are shown.
“Subscribe to medicine, subscribe to a bicycle, subscribe to a diet plan, subscribe to reading books, subscribe to a repair plan.”
“Why can’t we just own everything? I swear, if that were possible, someone would find a way to make you pay for the air you breathe.”
–BoxWonderful5393
11.
“Remove humans from all customer-facing areas. Managers believe that robots spitting out FAQs will save them $20,000 per person per year without ever understanding what that person is doing.”
–Subscribe
12.
“Banks. Branches are closing and have now reduced their opening hours. The branch experience has deteriorated. They are forcing people to use the machines and the vast majority of people have no idea how to use them, which means the queues move more slowly. That is, at least, if all the machines are working at all.”
–roxwe11
13.
“The Dyson hand dryer in public toilets. If I wanted the sound of a supersonic jet dryer in a small room with poor acoustics, I would have gotten a jet dryer. If three people set it off at the same time…”
–Derries_bluestack
