The feeling that things might get better.

For me it was the inspiration I felt from technological improvements. I grew up in a house where my father was a network engineer and would constantly have computers opened up he was tinkering with. And all through the 90s I saw more and more improvements that made me feel like the future would be even more amazing! This persisted well into the 2000s with the coming of social media and small commercial devices like MP3 players, cell phones, etc. It just seemed like everything was improving and that if a company stopped improving, another company would come along and give the people what they want! But now I live in a world where all of the things that used to excite me have betrayed me and anything new I am extremely skeptical of. I see all kinds of new and interesting technological improvements come along and while they seem like excellent ideas that would improve my life, I also see the many ways in which they would exploit me, my privacy, and my money. I would love to have a camera doorbell in which I can see who is at the door and talk to them while I'm not at home, but those devices are horribly insecure and you have to subscribe to their services. I just can't do it and I wish we could go back to the days in which you could just buy a product that might improve in a few years and you didn't need to worry about it watching you or costing money every month. Instead you could just be excited about your little gadget and dream about what the next version would be like.

Climate change was still a "this will be a big problem and we need to do something about it sooner rather than later" issue instead of "actively experiencing and watching the damage and misery on a near daily basis and knowing it will be getting much much worse" reality.

No amount of Captain Planet telling me to separate my recyclables is going to fix this shit.

Big box games with proper manuals.

Hope

No cell phones

My wife and I are increasingly convinced that we, humanity, peaked in the 90s. We had conquered acid rain. We were removing CFCs. The internet was coming in, so were mobile phones (but only to call and text, so you could stay in touch but escaped the trap of a million cameras around us), the music was so incredibly broad (Brit pop, grunge, spice girls, dance … it was like the world’s biggest buffet), the high street was still doing fine, TV had great shows (Seinfeld, X-files etc) and everyone just seemed a damn sight happier than today since misery-communities hadn’t formed on the internet to celebrate and refine their misery.

It was a simpler time. And all powered by a healthy western economy and the declaration of a (naive) victory in the Cold War.

The ability to take for granted that anything and everything I purchased was owned outright. It couldn't be taken away, either intentionally or accidentally, in any capacity.
Now everything is all always-online digital licenses, and they can be swapped to monthly subscriptions at a moments notice.

I miss not having social media and news that, at least generally, tried to be actual news and not 'JusT ASkinG QUeStioNs' and disingenuous bullshit. It was a wild ride being on social media almost since its birth, but I think it generally was a huge mistake. Things should have stopped at IRC and UseNet.

Having guys make me mix tapes.

Anyway, this one really cute guy at college had an epic cassette collection and he was also artistically talented so he made custom covers/inserts for each one. The original tape is long gone, but somewhere I still have my favorite cassette cover that also includes the hand-printed play list.

He had other excellent skills, so I eventually married him.

The bright colors. Something has changed and suddenly neon jackets and shirts were available. It felt very optimistic and futuristic. Everything was briefly neon. It was glorious.

It was not long after that pants got huge and clothing got dark, subtle, and depressed. Like everyone wants to be an adult and not an easy target for the random gunmen.

Shit. School shootings weren't a thing. I miss that not being a thing.

Neon all of the things!

Fresh episodes of X-Files and Star Trek: TNG every week.

Just that whole experience of something on television being a cultural zeitgeist because everyone had to watch it at the exact same time because that was the only time it existed. Sure, you could record it on VHS and watch later, but it wasn't the same. Even being at home watching alone felt like participating in a social event.

IRC.

Having no responsibilities

Catalogues. Totally different feeling than online shopping. You could explore them for hours. No need to wait for a good offer, because the price does not change.

The internet. Web2.0 made everything worse with trackers and three companies running almost everything.

My youth

Big box games, especially the ones with the "board game" style boxes.

CRTs (mainly because of what they represent).

Point-and-click adventure games (thanks Myst).

Game/movie rental stores.

Malls.

In general, I miss the fact that the 90s (and early 2000s) had the internet, but the internet wasn't developed enough to replace physicality. As we've grown more dependent on the internet, we're losing physicality. Our games are digital, our music is digital, our TV shows, movies, news, socialization, everything is becoming digital. We own less and less because companies don't have to offer a physical product anymore. We dreamed of 3d malls that we'd browse with friends in virtual reality; but we got text and images instead. Our malls have no form, neither physical or virtual, the worst of both worlds. We no longer have a chance at physicality, even in a virtual sense, because doing so is a waste of resources. Why build a virtual mall when a webpage will suffice?

Somehow music is fighting back against the loss of physicality and is winning with records, CDs and yes, even cassettes. I hope eventually we make a return to physicality and can learn from this obsession with the digital and non-physical.

Hope for the future

Not being chronically ill.

OS/2 Warp

Going multi-day backpacking with buddies. Knees and back are whining little wusses now.

For me it’s holding a VHS in the store and looking at the cover.

Yeah - that's a good one. Our local store had a Friday night deal: 5 weekly rentals for 10 bucks, or something. We'd go order fish and chips, then go argue over which 5 movies to rent, while our dinner was cooking.

Although I shouldn't, I miss my shitty old Datsun sometimes. Easy to diagnose problems, simple to get into and fix, with minimal tools required. No tech - just mechanical and electrical.

Nostalgia's a funny thing. Lots of things I get wistful for, but they've been replaced by (arguably) more convenient things:

• Having to call your mate's house at a specific time, because you know he has footy training and won't be home to answer before that time
• Waiting until specific times of night to watch your favourite TV shows or listen to your favourite radio DJs
• The massive zip-up carry case for all my cassette tapes, to play in the car
• 6-way link-up Daytona arcade racing
• Loading my computer games from multiple floppy discs (X-Tree Gold macros for the win!)

Then there's things that I miss, because now I have to adult:

• Sleeping in on weekends
• Work I don't have to take home with me
• Being able to stay out stupidly late on Friday and Saturday nights
• Getting absolutely shitfaced on those nights, without worrying about the hangover
• Eating a bag of chips and calling it dinner, because there's no one else you need to feed

Someone else paying the bills.

$4 punk shows on Fridays and $6 rock shows on Saturdays. Unless one of the bands was getting radio play then it was $8 or $12.

I miss myself.

Born in the early 80s, the 90s been my youth. Reading through the comments here I realize there's nothing I miss from the 90s. Every single thing mentioned here has either been replaced by something better, or isn't gone in the first place.

Big box computer games, with manuals and maps and those game brochures showing you all the other Ocean software products.

Watching the birth of the general public internet that everyone has access to.

I remember the early 90s hearing people talk about it, then seeing signs of it in the mid 90s. We all thought it was going to make the world so much better for everything and everyone.

Then starting in the late 90s everyone was getting online and it just went crazy.

It was exciting to be around for the start of it all.

We got to live life without an internet and then all of sudden it was here and we couldn't live without it.

It was like being the generation that saw the first airplanes and commercial aviation becoming part of the world.

Not having to work. I was 12 or 13 at the turn of the millennium. So not working was nice.

I probably miss my Gameboy Pocket (and Pokemon). Yeah the screen was tiny, not in color, and it wasn't backlit, and I have a Switch and Steam Deck and of course an smartphone, but...Idk, the Pocket was just so quaint and cute. I could just play that play Pokemon for hours on end, anywhere I wanted, without disturbing anyone. Which I did, sometimes even at school, which eventually got it confiscated by a teacher; I got it back at the end of the day.

It was such a paradigm change in gaming (Yes, I know the original GB or even Sega GameGear existed, but I knew few people who had one and they were bulky as all hell).

Getting bored with my job and being able to have a new one that afternoon.