How are electric windows in cars an"improvement"? It's different but it doesn't change your life in any significant way at all. Car safety is an improvement. Not this. Countless other things listed are in the same category. Was it so hard to have to rewind tapes?? Those are micro-comfort things that contribute exactly zero to our happiness.
I'm old enough to remember a time when there were no tapea at all. We weren't worse off. Everything was memorable. Now nothing is important.
Also, cheap airfarea, cheap, disposable clothes, etc. are destroying the planet faster than wver before. Counting "improvements" without externalities is absurd.
In my truck I can lock all of my windows to keep kids from rolling them down. If I'm driving alone I can roll down the passenger window without leaning over the bench. My windows have a behavior where the window will roll all the way down automatically if I press the button with a certain duration.
All of these features mean I almost never think about the state of the windows while I'm driving for more than a split second. I think that's a safety win.
Also it's just nice not to have to roll down a window or rewind a vhs. Micro-comforts add up.
I, for one, enjoy power windows. Better yet, I enjoy power windows that you press or half a second and they go up or down all the way. They now have power rear windows for trucks, which I'm marginally excited about when I get my next truck (hopefully not needing to do so for a decade or two). Very related is air conditioning in the car. When I was a kid, if you were hot, you cranked down the window and let hot air blow on you.
Rewinding VHS? One of the selling points for me on DVD was no rewinding and having scene selection. No more "be kind, rewind" signs anymore and getting a small fee at the movie rental store for non-rewound movie.
Sure, these are micro improvements in conveniences, but I enjoy them. People don't like waiting. Anything that improves that will improve someone's impression of the thing. Heck, I now prefer streaming over sliding in a DVD. It is only saving me, at most, a minute or two. But it is less waiting.
I'm old enough to remember a time when there were no tapea at all. We weren't worse off. Everything was memorable. Now nothing is important.
Also, cheap airfarea, cheap, disposable clothes, etc. are destroying the planet faster than wver before. Counting "improvements" without externalities is absurd.