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The tragedy of the commons is one of those sad realities, where so many things could be made better by being shared, but humans at the end of the day will be humans. It only takes a few selfish or stupid jerks to ruin some genuinely good ideas for the rest of us.
Someone asked “What genuinely useful thing has been ruined by stupid people?” and people shared their examples. From shared amenities to just good, old public spaces, get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own experiences and ideas in the comments section below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
State Parks, but more tainted than ruined. My husband and I hiked at two separate state parks this weekend and I was appalled. We saw dog poop, dirty diapers, water bottles, and food wrappers on almost every trail we walked. Also, for the love of God, NOBODY wants to listen to your music. Use headphones, you heathen.
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#2
The internet’s potential for knowledge has been marred by misinformation.
#3
Every goddamed app on the planet wanting to have you turn on push notifications. No, I do not want my phone constantly going off at all hours of the day.
#4
Airbnb.
A cool, couch surfing idea that became a way to rent a spare room and save a little money on a hotel, got turned into a way to cut off housing supply and create a housing crisis, all by its own users.
similarly 4 months ago
It's not so much that AirBnB was used to cut off housing and create a housing crisis so much as corporations creating an artificial housing shortage in order to raise property prices in a VERY dangerous game of economic musical chairs, and then using those properties as short-term rentals, Airbnb, etc. I feel personally it was not so much AirBnB misusing the system so much as financial institutions using AirBnB as a means to misuse the system.
#5
Pain medication. People with health issues suffer in pain ignored by doctors because junkies use our qualify of live saving medication to get high.
brown eyed girl 4 months ago
I have a neuromuscular disease and have been in increasing amount of pain in the last 20 years. I also own a pretty successful large business. Since the oxcycontin debacle and the rise of synthetic fentanyl I cannot get the needed pain meds to be able function like I used too. I appreciate the above post... this is big problem for chronic pain patients who DON'T abuse their medication.
#6
Google search
At the time, Google's algorithm was a breath of fresh air compared to the dog s**t Ask Jeeves.
Now its results are just those who paid the most to Google followed by those that paid the most to SEO companies.
#7
One genuinely useful thing that has been ruined by stupid people is the online review system. Originally intended to help consumers make informed decisions and businesses improve their services, it has been flooded with fake reviews, both positive and negative. Some people leave one-star reviews for trivial reasons, like a package arriving a day late, or worse, they weaponize reviews to unfairly attack businesses they have personal grudges against. This misuse undermines the credibility of the entire system, making it harder to distinguish between genuine feedback and malicious or frivolous comments.
similarly 4 months ago
I feel that the misuse by ordinary people pales in comparison to the misuse by corporations, who literally pay other corporations to leave reviews. I generally look for places on the internet (won't say where, since I don't want to the corporate bots to figure it out too quickly) where ordinary people talk about their experiences with various products.
#8
The environment. We should've been doing something about climate change ages ago. We've known since 1938.
similarly 4 months ago
When I was a kid, Saturday morning was filled with "Give a hoot, don't pollute" and "Only you can stop forest fires" and other commercials that were famous for my generation. In the 1960s, there was this huge movement to care about the Earth, but here we are, 80 years later, and we're still doing a lot of the same stupid stuff!
#9
Voting
Everyone who votes should pass a basic civics test. Stupidity is killing our democracy, as our elected representatives are increasingly manifestations of grievances and hatreds and not of our aspirations.
#10
Plastic. Incredibly useful material.
Totally ruined by selfish people discarding it without a thought, corporations for prioritising profits over the environment, cosmetic companies for creating micro plastics, and governments for not doing anything about it!
#11
Emotional Support Animals and Service Animals. Contrary to popular belief, they are not the same thing at all and stupid people getting fake ESA’s has bled into it harming people with service animals. Only a medical professional can prescribe an ESA, not a website or “registry” and an ESA is not allowed in public spaces like a service animal. It just allows the animal to live with you in places that usually wouldn’t allow animals or pets.
Snazzy Smurf 4 months ago
ESA are making life a little difficult for Service Animals. Service Animals do a job such as guide the blind, predict changes in blood sugar or pressure, assist with POTS, help those with seizures, aid the hearing impaired, assist those with autism, help with mobility problems, and aid in certain types of mental health settings and PTSD. Service animals work to keep their owners alive or in stable/good health. Most importantly service animals are legally considered trained medical equipment. A trained dog starts at $10K depending on need. An owner can only be asked 1. Is the dog a service dog? 2. What job or tasks has the dog been trained to performed? ESAs are legally considered untrained pets that provide comfort to their owner but do not actually perform a job. To qualify for an ESA a letter from a legit health care professional is needed. I know I went overboard but there is sometimes confusion between the two.
#12
Conversations.
People don’t understand that information isn’t just found on FB, Insta and other social media platforms
They repeat ridiculous things they see posted by someone they don’t know and state it as fact because “I read it”.
Common sense is gone. Critical thinking. Gone. People liking things doesn’t make it true. And this whole “ I feel like it’s true” BS has to stop already. Facts aren’t what you feel.
similarly 4 months ago
My feeling is that clickbait and ragebait are, like spam emails, deliberately designed to bypass people's logic by causing them to feel a strong emotion. They shock us with titles that cause worry, fear, anxiety, anger because these strong emotions tend to inhibit rational logical thought. Instead of reading and thinking, people just react to the headline, and then what's in the article doesn't really matter. People will only see what they want to see. And why do they do it? Not to help anyone, that's for sure. It's because they want people to like, subscribe and share because all of that gets them ad revenue. Money is the end-all, be-all of the whole shebang.
#13
Social Media. Spreading fake news, they are not thinking before clicking.
#14
The media.
Great journalists doing impressive, balanced analysis of the issues of the day that informed people was what we had.
Today, with idiots at the helm and solely being driven by advertising rather than content we get total BS that is dividing countries by being aligned to a certain political movement.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 4 months ago
The difference between corporate media and independent media.
#15
Antibiotics. Great for dealing with bacterial infections, not so good at dealing with viruses, and now we have antibiotic resistant bacteria because of overuse.
#16
Online recipe blogs.
I understand the value of sharing experiences and the personal touch, but scrolling through pages of life stories and reflections on the changing seasons just to find the temperature for baking chicken thighs can be maddening. The recipe gets snowed under an avalanche of context and anecdotes. It's especially tedious on mobile, where your battery life ebbs away as you swipe past the tales of childhood and pictures of someone's dog wearing a chef's hat.
What started as a wholesome platform to share kitchen wisdom has become a test of patience, where we're forced to dig like culinary archaeologists to find the treasure trove: the actual list of ingredients and instructions. We've taken the concept of passing down recipes and wrapped it in the literary equivalent of a thick wool sweater — heartwarming, but not when you're in a hurry.
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 4 months ago
I note some sites have a "skip to recipe" button/link now.
#17
The general idea of home owners' associations.
Sand Ers 4 months ago
HOAs have become a form of collusion between developers and local jurisdictions. Instead of the City or County maintaining public infrastructure, the developers form an HOA and dump that responsibility onto it. Cities are happy because they can collect property taxes, but don’t have to supply any services in return. Developers are happy because when their shoddy shìt starts to fail a few years down the line, they’re effectively untouchable (they had the HOA sign a contract absolving them of responsibility). They people that live there are screwed.
#18
I’ll go first: essential oils. They smell brilliant, reduce stress & anxiety and help treat fungal infections, but all the anti-vax & ‘crunchy’ moms have decided they’re a magical solution to everything that is wrong with the world.
Zelda McLink 4 months ago
There are some specialists in aromatherapy that use it as complimentary treatment. They are aware that oils aren't going to cure autism or cancer, but know that making patients more comfortable and peaceful will promote healing and lead to better patient outcomes.
#19
At least in my area, “Pick your own” farms. It used to be a way to get seasonal produce in bulk for a low cost because you supplied the labor of picking it. Then it became trendy to do. Now it is full of people and kids making a mess, damaging plants, picking unripe items or deciding what they picked isn’t “perfect” and throwing it on the ground, and eating huge amounts instead of buying. Farms have been forced to massively raise prices to compensate for the losses caused by people who have no business being in the field.
similarly 4 months ago
Recently, there's been a trend to massively inflate the prices of food, and I've seen a LOT of different things being used to justify it. However, it's just a profit scam. Someone finally dropped the last of their morals and said "What do people absolutely need? Food? Water? Shelter? Health care? Education? Let's massively inflate all of these!"
#20
Public parks have been ruined by littering and vandalism.
#21
All the "something" sharing, car sharing/ Uber , room sharing/ airbnb, etc. A simple idea with huge potential to have a big impact in the way people use resources, all ruined by greedy people.
#22
Phone/mail/email
Used to be great ways of communicating. Now there's so much spam and scam communications that it's pretty miserable.
#23
In my city there was this bike sharing project. Amazing for students and young people. Within 3 days (3!!!) all of the bikes (F*****G ALL OF THEM) got either stolen or badly damaged.
#24
Reddit. Pretty much any online forum tbh. I just want to chat about jigsaws and guitars please stop calling me names.
similarly 4 months ago
I agree. It's so easy for people to do that in the secure anonymity of the internet. Even on BP, there's a tendency that once a person starts to get upvoted or downvoted, the trend continues. People who see a downvote are more likely to downvote that post. While most people on BP are awesome, there are a few who do namecall and get very rude.
#25
Capitalism. You have a third or fourth generation of f*****g morons inheriting the company daddy built, suppressing competition and automating or outsourcing all the jobs. Then increasing prices to get an 8th consecutive quarter of record profits. Then they go get their government “loan”.
#26
Driving. Arguably far from ruined but has the potential to be so much safer and better for all if it wasn't for the recklessness and stupidity of dangerous drivers.
#27
The NHS. Deliberately wrecked by successive governments (mainly Conservative), who have destroyed our greatest source of national pride.
#28
Food delivery. Tried to hand my buddy cash and told him I’d pay for pizza. He couldn’t find anywhere to order from without paying first through an app. People are stupid for accepting this as the new norm. Tipping before you receive the service? Delivery drivers seeing the tip before they take a delivery is ridiculous.
StumblingThroughLife 4 months ago
So far, I've had one (Just Eat app) restaurant ask me to add a tip. Cheeky sods, I haven't used that take out place since. We have a decent mandatory min wage in the UK, and we don't really have that kind of tip-pressure-culture, and if I ever want to give a tip to the driver (for being quick, for e.g.), I'll hand him cash on delivery.
#29
Gas cans. I promise more gas is spilled today than was ever wasted in the past with normal cans that just had a spout.
Part of the problem is how the new cans are designed. They build them for a car and they work okish for that purpose. But who uses a gas can on their car? People want to fill motorcycles, or lawn mowers, or leaf blowers, and countless other small engines with small tanks where you can't shove a weird foreskin activated 4 inch long gas spout into a tank 2 inches deep and expect it to work properly.
#31
Higher education.
Parents in the 1960s saw that a degree guarantees you a cushy and respected job with a corner office, company car, and hot secretary, so they made their kids ashamed of blue collar jobs, and pushed them into higher education.
Now the western (and probably most of the eastern) world we have overeducated population, with only so many "elite" jobs to go around, so many are underemployed.
#32
Youtube. It used to be fun and a great place to get information and entertainment.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 4 months ago
Still is. You just have to dig deeper. And if ads bother you, get a VPN or a good adblocker.
#33
Bike paths, traffic calming, and pedestrian friendly design.
Us little people figured all this was a great idea and it was intuitively obvious where they’d do the most good.
Political hacks see the opportunity for glory projects, skip the obvious opportunities and areas of need, ignore local input, and blow though piles of money on reinventing the wheel (which they call “innovative” in the press release) and boondoggles in areas where there was no realistic demand or need for such amenities.
For the tiny few who do find the new construction helpful, maintenance will be neglected as the politicos set more money on fire chasing another shiny thing.
Anonymous 4 months ago
Bike infrastructure suffers the network effect: one bike lane is worthless. A bunch is okay. If they are everywhere they work awesome. But you can't afford to change everything all at once, so change what you can when you can afford it and grow the bike network just as we grew the car network. You hardly ever see horses any more.
#34
Digital media in general.
TV, Internet, Video Games - other than the latter one these media can be super useful.
But practically speaking screens have just become executive dysfunction induction machines that people use as an escape to never truly start living.
Screens have stolen so many years of my life it's crazy.
similarly 4 months ago
I see the point, but I feel the escape into the screens is not the fault of the screens, nor even the media. It's a symptom of other problems. Why are we all trying to escape? People keep trying to focus us on the problem of TV addiction, internet addiction, phone addiction, when our TVs and phones aren't the problem. We have unresolved social problems that are the cause, not the effect.
#35
Roundabouts. Great idea, but people can't seem to understand them. I don't know what to expect, though, when most drivers don't know what the red octagon sign means.
What do you think ?
Will Cable 4 months ago
Online forums, I'll try and explain. You'll get someone ask a genuine question about something, let's say sorting out an issue with car seat, Person will ask "How can I fix the seat recline in a Vugalpappen Tuffenpull" and within that forum someone will say "I don't have a Vugalpappen Tuffenpull so don't have a clue"...So don't post on the forum then wasting time I mean WTF
Myoviridae 4 months ago
The fact that the only current reply to this post is a bot ad for WFH jobs is absolutely cracking me up!
Load More Replies...
ZGutr 4 months ago
Manuals. Less and less often a (useful) manual. Instead links to youtube videos. 1: In a manual you can use control-f and search for what you looking for 2: Youtube is a lost cause, you can hardly see any video between advertisements.(yes, better with blockers but since advertisements became the main thing they send out i'm no longer going there)
Daisy1355 4 months ago
I got a "manual" for assembly that was a qr code to a YouTube video. Not only did I have to keep pausing and rewinding because they had the video fast forwarded, but they skipped half the steps. I work much better with written words and pictures in step by step.
Load More Replies...
The Phantom Stranger 4 months ago
I usually try to stay out of the war of generations, but I find this post particularly amusing because so many of these complaints bould down to "things were better when I was younger!"--a belief that Boomers are often criticized for, yet many of these complaints have to be coming from Millennials or Gen Z, since a lot of the things being complained about (AirBnB, Uber, social media, etc) are only about 2 decades old or less. I've been around long enough, and lived through enough end-of-the-world crises that I've adopted an attitude of "this too shall pass". Not that serious issues don't need to be addressed, but oftentimes in hindsight problems were not as severe as originally believed. Life is cyclical--things get worse; things get better again. Nothing is permanent, and if we remain calm and at least cautiously optimistic, we will all come out safely on the other side.
Will Cable 4 months ago
Online forums, I'll try and explain. You'll get someone ask a genuine question about something, let's say sorting out an issue with car seat, Person will ask "How can I fix the seat recline in a Vugalpappen Tuffenpull" and within that forum someone will say "I don't have a Vugalpappen Tuffenpull so don't have a clue"...So don't post on the forum then wasting time I mean WTF
Myoviridae 4 months ago
The fact that the only current reply to this post is a bot ad for WFH jobs is absolutely cracking me up!
Load More Replies... ZGutr 4 months ago
Manuals. Less and less often a (useful) manual. Instead links to youtube videos. 1: In a manual you can use control-f and search for what you looking for 2: Youtube is a lost cause, you can hardly see any video between advertisements.(yes, better with blockers but since advertisements became the main thing they send out i'm no longer going there)
Daisy1355 4 months ago
I got a "manual" for assembly that was a qr code to a YouTube video. Not only did I have to keep pausing and rewinding because they had the video fast forwarded, but they skipped half the steps. I work much better with written words and pictures in step by step.
Load More Replies... The Phantom Stranger 4 months ago
I usually try to stay out of the war of generations, but I find this post particularly amusing because so many of these complaints bould down to "things were better when I was younger!"--a belief that Boomers are often criticized for, yet many of these complaints have to be coming from Millennials or Gen Z, since a lot of the things being complained about (AirBnB, Uber, social media, etc) are only about 2 decades old or less. I've been around long enough, and lived through enough end-of-the-world crises that I've adopted an attitude of "this too shall pass". Not that serious issues don't need to be addressed, but oftentimes in hindsight problems were not as severe as originally believed. Life is cyclical--things get worse; things get better again. Nothing is permanent, and if we remain calm and at least cautiously optimistic, we will all come out safely on the other side.
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