So much has changed over the years.

We have to roll with it.

Does anyone remember the Cabbage Patch Kids?

They were a whole mega industry. Dead.

Just saying...

Inked Out

"Printers. Which is weird to say as I’m a printer repair tech. But yeah they are slowly dying out. My company has started diversifying into other areas because we literally had a drop of like 60% last year." ~ dreamnightmare

Giphy

Teenage Dreams

"The teen magazine industry. I used to read them and they were so many, but now they’re just gone. They’re either online or non-existent. I really think that due to the Internet and social media, the purpose of those magazines is obsolete., to say the least." ~ lilasketching

"I used to have subscriptions to so many of the teen magazines…CosmoGirl, Seventeen, YM, Teen Vogue…now I can barely focus on magazines. It all seems so trite." ~ degrassipurist

The Arcade

"Also one no one thinks of is arcade game technician. There are already very few of these around and it's a dying breed. I know a few and they are older and ready to retire and there really aren't any that are young, if there are some that are young, we are talking very few and far between."

T"his was a very common job in the 1980's when arcades were booming. Someone had to keep the machines running. It's also very difficult to become an arcade game technician, you can't exactly go to school for it, there is probably only one traveling school in the USA that teaches this sort of thing."

"And even now it's more like being a casino slot machine technician. If you want to learn old school arcade game repair techniques you have to find someone who is older who is willing to teach you, and that will be very difficult." ~ SaraAB87

Death Becomes Us

Cemeteries. I think it is up to about 70% cremation and hardly anyone buys plots anymore. It really is a dying industry." ~ Afraid_Opportunity40

"I wont say cemeteries are dying since someone still needs to maintain these places, they’re just not expanding, worked at a cemetery for a couple years as a side job and we had loads of burials in that time but only a handful were in new plots. As you said most people choose cremations nowadays but they still bury the ashes in an urn for the most part."

"They tend to just put them in the family plot on top of grandma and grandpa so no need for any new land. The cemetery I worked at had like 2 acres mapped out for future expansion but at the rate we were going with selling those plots it’ll take them 1000 years to fill it up."

"I for one am not at all upset with this because let me tell you full burials are a pain in the ass. Most people probably don’t think about it but digging a grave is pretty much everything they tell you not to do when digging a hole. A 6 foot hole straight down with straight edges is extremely unstable so you’re constantly battling cave ins and often times have to jam some kind of shoring in there."

"Then you’d better hope the funeral home talked the family into buying a concrete grave liner or vault, otherwise when you bury the casket it’ll eventually break and cave in on itself again and you’ll have to go back and fix it cause you’ll have a sinkhole. A cremation burial is just a 2’x2’ hole dug with a shovel, takes up less space and is so much easier on the cemetery staff." ~ kg1206

The Strangest 'Wrong Number' Stories | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Before we all had caller ID, wrong numbers phone calls were commonplace. But now that almost everyone screens their calls, it's wrong number texts that have ...

Shine On

"These shoe-shining stores in NYC, can't understand how they afford the rent." ~ infomaticaddict

Giphy

Those shoe shine people work hard.

I wonder about how they make it work.

Who stops for a shoe shine anymore?

pass the test...

"Standardized tests companies. There are many of them because they used to send out 10’s of thousands of paper copy tests. School districts are leaning more towards online testing, meaning one company can cover 100’s of thousands of people." ~ PM_ME_UR_PAYROLL

Giphy

Lost Balance

"Driveshaft repair/balancing. The one repair man we had in the city closed his doors because he had a HIGH demand but no one else works there and no one has the patience it takes to learn it and do it. He got tired of his customers not being patient enough to sit on his wait list." ~ ThisonetimeinNewYork

Into the Woods

"Forestry. Last I heard in the US the average age of a Forester was over 50+." ~ TeamCam8

"It sucks because I really wanted to get a degree in ecology and work at a national park, but when I researched the wages and looked into how many permanent jobs were available, the math just didn't add up for me. I'd owe too much in student loans, and I would have to move constantly because all of the work was seasonal. It's very unfortunate." ~ _AquaFractalyne_

Show me the light...

"How can Lamp Shade stores pay the rent?!?" ~ BigBl3uu

"My family friend just retired and closed her lampshade shop. Sure she sold individual lampshades and did repairs on lamp shades, and could even custom make lampshades, but their bread and butter was hotels, office buildings, interior design agencies, etc." ~ PDXgoodgirl

In Death

"I think the funeral business has priced themselves out of the market for the traditional embalming and burial that costs five figures. I know some conservative, religious family members that opted for cremation just because of the cost." ~ p38-lightning

Giphy

Funerals are a mess. And burials even messier.

It feels like cremation is becoming the way to go.

Life is moving forward. Industries evolve, as must we.

Want to "know" more?

Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.