Advances in technology are not uniform along all dimensions. The new technology is often better overall, but may actually represent steps backward along some dimensions. For example I used to use a word-processor called "Wordmarc" that permitted me to go to a page by simply typing in the page number of the page, which I still wish I could do with large documents in Microsoft Word. And the first email system we used in the college, from Wordperfect, I think, allowed you to retrieve an email, if you had second thoughts about it, before it was opened by the intended recipient.
Here are a couple of more examples:
(p. A8) In the age of film, when the button was pressed, the picture was captured in an instant. In the vast majority of digital cameras, there’s a delay that can last as long as two seconds.
To some users, it’s another example of how advanced-technology products often lack important virtues of their predecessors. Cellphones often crackle with static that Ma Bell eliminated in rotary phones many years ago; computer printers need endless adjusting before they can print an address on an envelope — a task that typewriters took in stride.
"I think we’ve really gone backwards on these technologies," complains Marcia Gregg, a mother of two from Boston who has a digital camera but still fondly recalls her Pentax from the 1980s that "was instantaneous and made a really cool sound" when its motor drive was running.
For the full article, see:
WILLIAM M. BULKELEY. "Why Digital Cameras Often Shoot the Pony But Get Only the Tail The Answer Is ‘Shutter Lag,’ The Bane of Shutterbugs; Photo Ops Become Oops." The Wall Street Journal (Fri., May 26, 2006): A1 & A8.