Talking about computers, definitely yes, functionally. The socially important problems got solutions, imperfect, but replaceable ones.

We had publishing to all the world via Usenet and Web, file exchange with all the world via plenty of FTP servers, way to find those files and published pages via search engines (those real ones, which just indexed file attributes and page contents), our social identities were ICQ numbers and email addresses, our way to repost stuff was sending a link, our way to rate and discover good things was web directories made by people.

For evaluating something on the Web a vote is simply not a universal unit. Every vote is a different person. So upvotes and downvotes lead to numbers being important for ratings on something, which means that the least useful things get the biggest ratings. Because everything useful is offensive to someone.

The only downside that environment had was insufficient easiness of making a webpage, hosting a website, hosting something else.

If I were imagining a solution, it would look like an all-in-one suite like Hotline, but based on how the Web was then, including an intuitive editor (something more like QuarkXPress) for pages and with hosting and mirroring being transparent. A p2p system with cryptographic identities, but manual choice of hosting something. With a p2p contact directory, but many trees of trust inside that directory, where one tree of trust is like one email provider or one xmpp server for identities, that you subscribe to. With "domains" (sort of) being done similarly to that contact directory. With good old Kademlia for finding contacts, domains, groups and separate pages, posts or files. And other than good old Kademlia, possibly some kind of interchangeable client-server things, like storage areas and trackers and relays, to help with offline messaging and NAT's.

OK, my thought floated away, intuitive management of anything creative in that system is honestly the main flaw of how it was in year 1999. I even wonder if that "agentic AI" they are talking about has a place in such an application suite.

I'm almost exactly in the same boat, except even at my desk I want wireless. I often turn my camera off and get up to make coffee or go pee in big meetings. It's great. Even when I'm presenting things, it's usually only at a specific time, and I can still talk when I'm away from my desk (flip-to-mute microphones are great.)

I have several sets of wired headphones I used to love. I'd buy several sets at once so I already had a replacement when they inevitably broke But I literally can't remember the last time I used a pair of wired headphones. I only miss 3.5mm on my phone for plugging into my car's aux port.

Indeed. I have had to replace my studio headphones multiple times because I broke them that way. My earbuds are great for travel - much smaller and easy to walk around with.

The quiet issue is due to impedance. You need a better amplifier than your phones garbage dac. High ohm headphones require more juice.

I dont listen to headphones on the go really. Only in office. Usually it sounds awful and there's too much noise around me to enjoy it, and I prefer to enjoy music on my actual listening setup at home amyway, headphones will always sound worse due to no depth. But im weird about sound. Music isnt background noise to me.

I don't find this being an issue when I have to charge it maybe once a month. Not talking about IEMs of course.

You can hardly find wired headphones now. When you do they are junk. I want a sturdy headphone

Shop where the musicians shop.

Beyer dt 770. Very tough.

My mains are those, grado rs2, and senn hd595. Some sony md7506 but I hate the sound on them.

Recording musicians use them for monitoring. Bluetooth has too much latency when you are trying to keep your groove in the pocket.

I'm finding lots of great 10-15 yo used recording gear/tech that was originally $200+, going for cheap, like less than $50, because it doesn't have Bluetooth, which you don't want with recording gear anyway.

Go to where the audiophiles are. There are plenty of headphones and IEMs (earbuds) under $50 (and even $25) that sound fantastic and sound better than $200 dollar options out there. My favs that I actually tried are the MOONDROP Chu 2 $23, Koss KSC75 $20, and the Sennheiser HD 600 (which I got on eBay for like $250). Check out the audiophile subreddit, there are plenty of people who have made ranking lists.

Just see mondrop chu c2 for 20$ destroying 150$ Bluetooth earphones.

What's your budget? over ears or earbuds? if over ears open back or sealed?

The Sony XM3 and other headphones in the series are a great option since you don't have to choose, they have a headphone jack so you can go wired if you want.

Same thing with Shure Aonic 50s.

By wired do you mean exclusively RCA or do you count usb as well? Both pair of my Sennheisers work via USB if you plug it in.