I’m seeing a lot of nostalgia glasses here so just going to say some things were markedly worse (90s perspective): it was much harder to verify information whether that be for scientific research (the hole in the ozone layer was a big one at the time), directions, movie/game reviews or even geopolitical situations
The smell of vehicle exhaust was more common as many vehicles on the road predated the requirements of catalytic converters and you can bet there were a lot more people who would claim seat belts are more dangerous because they can trap you in a drowning vehicle (no matter how far inland they lived)
Buying batteries on a regular basis from the grocery store was a normal occurrence as rechargeable ones were either prohibitively expensive, unavailable or had iffy chargers and you needed them for a lot of stuff smartphones do today: clocks, answering machines, CD/cassette players, etc
Answering machines (though largely digitized by the late 90s) generally required tiny tapes to record voicemails while vacuums almost always required bags. Neither were large expenses but both were recurring as was using payphones but that’s a topic unto itself
There was a monoculture that we took for granted which I feel was both the best and worse part. Basically all your classmates and coworkers likely watched the same shows/movies as you which legitimately helped the community bond as a whole but those shows seldom challenged (or even could challenge) the status quo with “dangerous ideas” like same sex parents or non-white superheroes but I’m not gonna pretend I don’t miss the phenomenon of people excitedly going “hey, did you see Friends last night?” or the energy of Pokemania
I’m not trying to say it was strictly better or worse but the rise of the internet, smart phones, rechargeable batteries and widespread adoption of international standards (USB, various EU policies, Bluetooth) undoubtedly democratized many things previously held behind gatekeepers
Sometimes those gatekeepers were legitimately excellent at their craft, sometimes they were out of touch, sometimes they were manipulating the lack of info gathering tools at the time, or even (often) some combination of the three but that friction between us and the next piece of media made it easier to appreciate the 15th rewatch of The Mask on VHS while simultaneously helping to enforce the college textbook scam so well-known today
I could name a lot but Jesus does Gary, IN eminate bad vibes at its own special frequency
If you’ve seen Barbarian, the bits set in Detroit capture the vibe pretty well (which tbf is relatively close to Gary)