Top 20 Things from the 2000s That Don't Exist Anymore

During the mid-to-late 2000s, BlackBerry was climbing the charts in the mobile phone game, particularly in North America, with its iconic keyboards being a major pull. In 2009, the Blackberry Curve became the best-selling smartphone in the US. So what went wrong? You guessed it: iPhones and Androids. Although BlackBerry continued to expand its global user base and seemed to be thriving within the first few years of iPhones and Androids, its dramatic decline became glaringly apparent by the mid-2010s. By the end of that decade, whoever you knew that had previously owned a BlackBerry most likely no longer did. It was finally time for the company to bow out of the phone game in 2022.

Before the social media sites that dominate the digital world today, there was Xanga. In the 2000s, it became a popular place, especially among teens, to blog and connect online. This web blogging service took off at the start of the decade—and shortly after, it added features like comments and photo uploads. In 2006, Xanga let users upload audioblogs and add online friends. That year, it hit a user base of around 30 million. But even the launch of videoblogs in 2007 wasn’t enough to keep this once-significant social media presence around. Xanga shut its doors in 2013. Thanks, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

There’s Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Earth, so on and so forth. But what about Google Reader? It tends to get lost in the shuffle—probably because it hasn’t existed since 2013. Google Reader was launched in 2005 and became a popular way for people to collect their favorite web content in one organized place. Efficiency and organization were its main draws. However, a decline in use and Google’s desire to focus on other products led them to give Reader the boot. In March of 2013, a petition to save it reached over 100,000 signatures—but Google stood its ground.

The original Motorola Razr came out in November 2004—and from 2005 to 2008 it was at the top of the mountain in terms of cell phone popularity in the US. In retrospect, it might not seem all that special—but at the time, it was. The thin design of the V3 set it apart. When we reminisce about flip phones in general, the Razr should be thought of as the epitome of that era. But perhaps the only time you’ll see them nowadays is if you put on a TV series from the 2000s like “Prison Break,” or a 2000s movie, like “The Devil Wears Prada.”

A touch-screen device with data storage, Bluetooth, a calendar, an address book, and a calculator—sounds familiar, right? These are the functions many personal digital assistants (PDAs) were built to provide. PDAs entered a lot of people’s lives in the 1990s and 2000s. One example is Microsoft’s Pocket PC, which was introduced in 2000 but was phased out by the end of the decade. The concept of a pocket-sized computer has obviously evolved, becoming more advanced and well-rounded than PDAs ever were. As a result, PDAs lost their appeal. Still, they shouldn't be ignored as predecessors to modern smartphones.

#15: Friendster

115 million users were registered on Friendster in 2008—five years after its launch. This is one of the ancestors of social media that people probably forget about because it’s no longer around. The platform was designed to allow users to connect with others online, share content, comment, message, discover new events, and more. The problem was that it just couldn’t keep up with other major players in the industry, namely Facebook. Friendster transitioned to a social gaming platform in 2011. Just a few years later, it shut down its site before officially ceasing to exist in 2018.

As far as online games and virtual worlds go, Club Penguin was a standout. Just hearing the name probably brings back some nostalgia for anyone who was a kid during the late 2000s and early 2010s. After launching in 2005, Club Penguin reached 30 million users by 2007 and by 2013 had registered over 200 million accounts. While users could purchase memberships if they wanted to upgrade their penguin’s style, home, or pet, the basic version of the game was free. The interactive nature of Club Penguin was also instrumental to its popularity—that and of course the chance to play with virtual penguins! By the mid-2010s, though, Club Penguin's popularity began to decline, and it was discontinued in 2017.

Remember the days when watching a movie at home meant first heading to a rental store—or waiting for a DVD to arrive in the mail? For many, Blockbuster was the go-to place for that. At its peak, the chain boasted over 9,000 store locations. However, a combination of factors—including the Great Recession, rising competition, and a failure to adapt to the changing home video landscape—led to its demise. By 2014, all corporate-owned Blockbuster stores had closed, and the company had shut down its DVD-by-mail program after filing for bankruptcy a few years earlier. Technically, one Blockbuster store still survives in Bend, Oregon, serving as a nostalgic tourist attraction and a reminder of the brand’s once-iconic status.

Perhaps you remember that eye-catching red movie machine inside or outside your local supermarket, convenience store, or pharmacy. That vending kiosk was known as Redbox—easy to remember and instantly recognizable. Redbox was founded in 2002 and quickly expanded its kiosk locations across the US. The idea was transformative, and the technology seemed pretty awesome at the time. You’d use the screen to browse through numerous movie options, pick what you wanted to rent, pay, and voilà! The DVD would pop right out. You’d then bring it home, watch it, and return it when you were done—simple as that! However, with the rise of streaming, the company couldn’t keep up. Its run officially came to an end in 2024.

These discontinued portable media players were a key part of Apple’s history and revolutionized the way we listened to music. iPods were a tier above formats like MiniDiscs. The first-ever iPod was released in 2001. Over the years, Apple produced a variety of models—the Classic, Mini, Nano, Shuffle, and Touch—offering plenty of ways to enjoy your favorite tunes. Some versions even came with games. Many former iPod users probably remember using the iTunes Store to buy songs and build playlists. Apple officially discontinued the iPod product line in 2022—but its decline started long before as the iPhone took over in the 2010s, blending music playback with so much more.

Before the iPhone, there was the Nintendo PictoChat. This 2004 messaging app was included on various Nintendo DS consoles. Essentially, one user could type or draw on their console and share their message to other DS users. Those who played “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” may recognize the PictoChat, as it actually appears as a stage in the game. The app is technically still active, but let’s be honest, does anyone actually use it anymore? The DS was discontinued in 2013, and the 3DS has since replaced PictoChat with another app titled Swapnote.

This social networking service technically started back in 1999 when a programmer named Brad Fitzpatrick created it to stay in touch with his friends. The basics: people write a personal journal and other users can read it. It was eventually adopted by various fandoms and used for things like fan fiction and original stories, but even this was eventually taken elsewhere. Nowadays, the service is mainly used in Russia. Yep, the product was eventually sold to Russian company, SUP Media, where it became a popular site for political pundits and public figures. So, like the Twitter of Russia?

Shockingly enough, some people have never seen a pager outside of a movie. Pagers were essentially used to transmit voice and text messages before the invention of cell phones. These things have been used since the ‘50s, although they lasted well into the 2000s. In 2003 alone, the pager industry generated over $6 billion in revenue. Unfortunately, this all came crashing down upon the widespread adoption of cell phones and, you know, texting. Nowadays, pagers are mainly used in public health and emergency industries. This is due to their systems being more reliable than cell networks.

The Zune was essentially Microsoft’s answer to the iPod. It was a line of portable media devices that could play music and videos through the “Zune Music Pass” service. The first model, the Zune 30, came equipped with a whopping 30 gigs of storage and a three-inch screen. It was introduced in 2006, but sales were immediately stagnant. It took just 3% of the MP3 market, and was considered “dead” by 2008. Sales had crashed, and even major stores like GameStop refused to sell them citing a lack of demand. The hardware hung on until 2011, until it was mercifully discontinued.

CD players were introduced in 1982 and quickly eclipsed records as the primary method of listening to music. Their popularity lasted well into the 2000s. That is before things like the iPod and smartphones essentially made them obsolete. But, before then, we needed something to hold our hundreds of CDs. The answer: CD binders. These were large books filled with plastic pages, and in these pages were slots in which to slide a CD. Unfortunately, the fun of flipping through these “booklets” went out with CD players themselves. Now we scroll through our phones, instead! Admittedly, it doesn’t bring the same joy.

Remember the Sony Ericsson? Not many do. The mobile market is a fickle thing, and many companies - including BlackBerry - have come and gone. Smartphones were actually in play long before the iPhone appeared in 2007. In fact, five years earlier, Sony released a touch-based smartphone called the Sony Ericsson P800. This ran under the Symbian OS, which was developed in the late ‘90s for PDAs. The final Ericsson phone was the Vivaz, which was introduced in March 2010. After that, the Ericsson brand was discontinued. Sony dropped their previous OS and began running Android, and they abandoned the Ericsson line to focus exclusively on the Xperia.

Few video games are as historic as “Halo 2.” Its multiplayer component helped popularize Xbox Live and originated many now-common aspects of online gaming, including matchmaking and lobbies. Yep, one could certainly make the argument that online multiplayer gaming began with “Halo 2” - at least within the mainstream. Unfortunately, a major part of its history is now dead. The Xbox Live server was officially discontinued in April of 2010, and the PC servers were terminated three years later. By the summer of 2013, all the OG “Halo 2” servers were offline. Luckily, the game survives through “The Master Chief Collection,” and its multiplayer can still be enjoyed to this day.

There was simply nothing like getting home from school, grabbing a snack, and logging into MSN for the night. This was a basic service that allowed two or more people to talk to each other through text-based messaging. Voice recordings were introduced in later iterations. The service really took off in the early 2000s, with version 7.5 being released in the summer of 2005. Following that, MSN was rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, and this was officially released in June of 2006. Unfortunately, it was also around this time that social media truly blew up, leaving Messenger in the dust.

Following the advent of the internet, it didn’t take long for file sharing clients to pop up. The most popular, by far, were LimeWire and Napster. These took advantage of something called peer-to-peer file sharing. It essentially allowed people to download music from someone else’s files without paying for it. Isn’t that stealing? We’ll let you be the judge. These systems exploded in the early 2000s and were easy enough to use. So much so, that even the most technologically-averse individuals could operate them. Of course, along with their popularity came the copyright lawsuits. As a result, Napster was forced to shut down in 2001.

Anyone who used the internet in the early 2000s knows the sound of dial-up. Dial-up allowed us to access the early internet, which was more of a “Wild West” experience than the corporatized internet of today. The speeds were cumbersome, and the video and audio quality was not for the faint of heart. But, there was an undeniable sense of fun to it all. We were experiencing something groundbreaking, historic even. Of course, broadband killed dial-up in the mid 2000s, and a certain part of the internet ended with it. One thing we don’t miss however, is having to log off so someone could use the phone. Yeesh!




What do you miss the most from the 2000s? Let us know in the comments!