I read somewhere that GoPros and other action cameras are one of the least used purchases, so I figured "that should mean there's plenty on eBay". So grabbed up second hand bargain, played around with it for a couple of weeks, bought some extra batteries and other accessories, and since then it's sat in the cupboard except for a single occasion.

Turns out you don't need an action cam if you're not getting any action.

Bose Quiet Comfort II true wireless headphones.

I’d been toying with the idea forever. My earbuds are old, a little bulky, have some connectivity issues when one disconnects and it takes a lot of fussing to get them reconnected. So I decided to spend the money.

I get them from B&H. I get home, put them in, one of them has some sound issues—but other than that, the sound and fit were perfect. Like, they were my glass slipper. They fit perfectly, the seal was perfect, they wouldn’t ever hurt my ears after extended use…I was shocked.

But.

Having issues with one, I started messing with them, seeing if could get support or troubleshoot. Of course the first thing in the box is a QR for their app. Now, I never fuck with physical products apps. If I need an app, chances are I won’t use your shit. But I really wanted these to work, so I go to the app, and dig through the privacy policy.

Two addenda later, they’re trying to get me to sign the most obscene privacy policy ever. Listen to/record everything I play, collect a profile on me, listen to any ambient noise around the microphone, and weirdly, “map my head shape and movements?”

I deleted that app as quickly as I could. So I go to their support page on their site. Get into a chat with their customer service bot. It says, “replying to this message is agreement to our privacy policy.” So I open the link, read it…it kinda seems reasonable. Just talking about using my chat responses for training, standard. But then THREE layers of addenda deep I find here trying to get me to sign THE EXACT SAME FUCKIN POLICY.

I ran those fuckers back to the store. But not before trying to get someone on the phone about the legal matters. Yeah, nah. They wouldn’t connect me to someone in their legal dept. In fact, the very request seemed to puzzle them to no end.

FUCK BOSE. READ YOUR PRIVACY POLICIES.

A gaming chair, one of those that look like racer chairs. It basically destroyed my back, worst purchase of my life

I bought a Steam Deck so I can play games while on the go. I just kind of forgot I'm never actually on the go, so 90% of the time it's just gathering dust on my nightstand, because I'd rather play on my proper gaming PC when I'm at home.

A switch. There are a handful of good games but I prefer to play on my computer

I kinda regret buying my 3d printer. Not because it sucks, it's more because it reminds me I don't have any free time to do something this time consuming.

Another one is the cast iron wok. I love my cast iron pans, but the wok is just to damn heavy and it you can't really use it like one would use a normal lightweight wok.

I brought a drain snake for 3x the price of liquid drain unblocker and it got stuck in the drain and won't come out.

My Steam Deck and other game consoles, I have the money to buy them as an adult but I found that I have a fleeting interest at best in actually playing video games these days. At least my kids get some use out of them.

Games on Steam sales.

Dyson Airwrap. There’s a reason you never see professional salons using them.. it’s because they’re just not as good as a traditional hair dryer and other curling methods. I tried everything to get that thing to work and give me a nice style but it just didn’t. I’d use the airwrap attachments to curl my hair and by the time I’d finished, the curls I’d started on would already have dropped out. I couldn’t manage to get a nice smooth blow-dry like I can with a normal hairdryer either.

It’s like a jack-of-all-trades hairstyler. If you’re thinking of getting one I’d seriously recommend investing in a pro hairdryer instead and save your money. I can do my hair faster and my style lasts a lot longer with a hair dryer and curling with straighteners or rollers. I believe they do work for some people, but you have to have a specific type of hair (quite thick, with a natural wave or curl already) and it didn’t work for me. I’ve also had friends say the same thing.

This woman had the same experience as me with it:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/reviews/trying-450-dyson-airwrap-hold-22564616.amp

Most recently, Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies. I used to love the things and they were a nostalgic part of growing up, so I randomly decided to buy a box a few weeks back.

Took two bits of one and threw the whole box away. They were nasty. Chemically tasting, dry, full of little hard bits from poorly milled oats, etc. pure garbage. And this is not a matter of my tastes changing. I remember exactly how those are supposed to be, and the modern version is crap.

this never happens to me because I'm poor

A cellphone in like 1995. Had if for a few days before realizing I didn't have anyone to call. Returned it not long after.

Bought myself a wireless charger but I never use it because I just plug in my phone anyways cause it's faster.

My Steam library

Drone. A few years ago it's one of the craze that hit the world, lot of people playing with one, lot of youtuber using and talking about it, so i told myself, why not? I bought a cheap one, it can fly pretty okay, has limited range, tried it for a few time in front of my house to get the feel of it, and took it to an open field just to play with it. Turns out, flying it around is such an intense experience, too intense for me due to the fear of crashing it or hurting someone, or both. So the thing is now a dust gatherer.

I bought a Wii U. Nintendo only made like ten games for it.

Cast Iron Pan - I don't cook enough to justify it. Girlfriend at the time thought it was a good idea, and she used it a bunch, but now it's just in the cabinet probably rusting up.

Humidifier - It gets really dry in here and it was recommended as a solution to my dry eyes. But it's a pain to clean and refill, so it mostly just sits there.

Robo vacuum - It wasn't great at navigating the apartment, so I didn't use its auto schedule thing. Then the cat hair overwhelmed it. It is languishing in the closet. I got some use out of it, at least, driving it around like an RC Car, but I ended up buying a more robust manual vacuum cleaner

I bought a ps5, managed to avoid the scalpers, only game I played was horizon forbidden west, wish I waited for the pc release. Having the haptic triggers was kinda cool with the bow though, but not 500 bucks good.

Salt and Pepper grinder from a well recommended brand. Was like 80 bucks for the set and it's not better than the ones I get from Sam's Club. Infact it's worse. Disappointing.

I picked up my friends switch used for 200 buckaroos. I got really into DS emulation and I went really hard on pokemon especially. I was looking forward to BDSP.

The new pokemon games were really anemic. I got some fun out of Mario Galaxy. But it just sits there now. I miss the first party piracy experience. I think also if i had had the ability to easily bring my old school mons (which i still have saved on my pc).

Back in the early 10's I paid $200 for a year subscription license to Adobe Flash Pro, as I had convinced myself I was gonna learn to use it to produce sprite animations like the ones I grew up enjoying on Newgrounds. Never booted it once.

Skateboard from IKEA. It looks cool, but I still don't skate.

PSVR - fun for a week but otherwise useless.

Basically as a grown man... Warhammer.

I love Games Workshop games and the universes, but assembling, painting, putting together an army and finding time for a game is just beyond me. So I have more than a few boxes of good intentions in the cupboard.

My headphone pads on a pair of Sony MD7506 were fraying apart, so I bought a pair of $3 replacement pads online. While I was buying those, I noticed a nice looking $30 pair made of sheepskin leather. I bought those, too and figured I'd just use the $3 pair until they inevitably wore out, and then switch to the nice ones. Well, it's been some time now and the $3 pair are apparently far more robust than their forebears. The sheepskin remain in their packaging untouched. One day..

A few dozen boards games, some crazy expensive. The most recent one was the Witcher which was a Kickstarter campaign. I bought a label maker, small zip lock bags, spent a few hours punching out paper tokens and and sorting everything. Haven't played a single game.

My mom won the lottery, small amount but enough to buy some big gifts for xmas for us. She got me a Peleton, and while I love the gym / staying active I hate that damn thing.

A bread machine. Had good reviews. I used it like 3 or 4 times. The mixing things are too small to mix the dough properly, and having to fish them out of the bread after it was done was a huge hassle. The bread was not great... Shell was too hard, and the top side didn't cook properly. Then I realized, I could basically do the same with a planetary mixer that can mix the dough and the normal oven, and the end result was far better.

i bought some tortillas a month ago, but never got the craving for burritos. I should probably throw them out now...

Bought a motorized mop attachment for my Samsung Jet vacuum.

I didn't do my research and didn't realize that it doesn't vacuum up the water. So the thing literally just spins some pads and nothing else. Was such a waste of money.

My Amazon Kindle books. I figured out way later that I didn't actually own them! How absurd.

My smartwatch purchase partially. It's a Galaxy Watch4 Classic, it does stuff like track my workouts, heartrate, etc., run WearOS-optimized apps that I basically never use like Spotify, and I have to charge it every 2 days. I noticed that the only real feature I need is to get my phone's notifications on my wrist. Not really worth the € 200-300 purchase imo, but it works okay-ish.

My Seat Leon. I had been warned about VW Group’s new platform but holy hell, even the most dire warnings didn’t tell the truth.

The car crashes every day. Nothing works. Even basic functions, like keyless entry on the door handles. If it rains, nope doesn’t work. How about the speakers switching into centre speaker only? How about a reversing beeper stuck until the car is not just turned off, but left turned off for 10 minutes? How about Apple CarPlay which doesn’t work? The list is endless. It’s so so poor. After one update, the car sensors got confused about being in a left hand driving country, so cruise control wouldn’t overtake cars in the slow lane.

And I can’t afford to switch to another one.

Sony WF-1000XM5s. I feel like I'm going crazy because all the reviews online said they were the best of the best. That they were near perfect.

And yet, the usability sucks. They connect to my phone while they're in the case and closed, the noise cancelling cuts on and off, and sometimes they just refuse to connect until I put them back in the case.

The Sony headphones app also really sucks.

The sound quality is admittedly fantastic, but usability is just so frustrating.

My apple watch. So much on that watch either doesn't work as it should or I was straight lied to by an apple employee of how it worked. Will never buy one again.

Those potato spaghettifiers. Fuckers break when you try to push potatoes though. Waste of money.

Countless video games.

Slip on / low top rain boots.

I thought I would use them for walks in muddy forests, but it's not usually muddy enough when I go to justify wearing them for a full hike, and they're not comfortable to walk in for long distances.

I also thought I would wear them around the fishing ponds, but I enjoy taking my shoes off and wading in anyway. I can just go further than the boots would allow.

Bialetti Venus coffee maker, it's too fragile and needs a full 3 spoons of coffee to make half as much as my mug that I filled to the top with a paper filter while using just 2 spoons.

It changed color on the outside after a week, and you need to disassemble to store it so it takes a ton of space even though it's so small, also needs medium coffee and I can't find a good medium one in my area, my favorite is a fine ground.

My $500 laptop I panic bought after an employee started talking to me

It's incapable of anything and stutters when I start Firefox. I have a freebie laptop I got from Telus 10+ years ago that runs better than this off-the shelf laptop.

I couldn't in good-conscience sell this to make my money back either... sigh... at least it keeps me focused on work..?

PS5 remote. It's kind of useless as it doesn't even have the Source selection button, so I need to keep using a regular remote too anyway. Doesn't have other buttons for TV either, except volume. The apps buttons are hardcoded and cannot be customized. Any accidently pressed button starts up the console. I kind of still use it for video apps but I regret the purchase.

I bought a Valve Index two years ago, had fun with it for a couple weeks, then never used it again :⁠-⁠\

A jet ski and a GoPro . And 10 years later we still have never used that kitchenaid stand mixer. It looks nice on the counter though.

Insurance

Most of the stuff I regret buying can be sold as second-hand. My biggest miss is to buy a good laptop for high too early, now I want an OLED display on laptop but I am stuck with my expensive model with LCD😅

A desk cycle. My keyboard is on a low pull-out shelf (more ergonomic) which got in the way of any meaningful cycling while I was trying to work.

The good news is that I eventually did get off my ass and started running for exercise, first on the treadmill at home and now I do it outside. Still have the desk cycle in the basement.

A Nintendo Switch. A Steam Deck would probably be a better purchase.

Basically anything that I don't really think about.

Every impulse buy has made me measurably disappointed

It's always lower quality, less useful and I am always wish I had the money instead latter.

Permanently Deleted

Collected wine. Still have lots of it, don't really drink anymore, and have no storage space. Don't ask.

A Leap-Motion

I bought an Instant Pot back in 2017. I've never used it.

The Slap Chop was a huge disappointment after the slam dunk that the Sham Wow ended up being. It was the same pain as buying the rushed and terrible Megaman Battle Network 4 after playing and loving the classic masterpiece that came before it.

I bought a new netbook last year to watch stuff on as my old one from like 10 years ago finally fell apart.

I fucking hate the new Windows so much and I'm not techy enough to change the operating system to something better, so I barely use it as watching stuff on my phone is easier.

So many untouched videogames.

My ab roller.

The 1kg bag of brown rice I bought to be healthier.

Amazon Prime.

A fake olive tree that sits in my living room.

There are three things, off the top of my head, that I can recall buying but either not using very much or not for it's intended purpose. The first item is a portable bluetooth keyboard, I got it for the purpose of playing games on my android devices with it but the problem is that I haven't found many games that actually even have keyboard support. The second item is a portable bluetooth mouse, it's the same as the keyboard but with the additional issue of not working with my tablet for some reason. The third item is a DS flashcart, I forgot what it's called but it's the one from Datel and I had so many problems with it that I've been using it's "Gigapack" for transferring small files between my two computers.

Sonos speaker. I have Google Home speakers around the house and we use them to play music. Sonos almost never get used

I inherited a blender. I thought I’d absolutely use it. Nope. Food processor on the other hand is amazing and I want a better one someday

I bought an immersion blender on like prime day or black Friday with grandiose plans of using it for all kinds of things. 3 years later, and it's still in the box

It was years ago, but it was an unbranded, generic portable CD player. It was awful. It kept skipping forward and backward on the track whenever it wasn't still, so basically "portable" was false advertising because it was only usable when sat still on a table. Since then, whatever I buy, I make sure it's from a recognised brand that has some reputation to lose.

I would just say that not everything needs to be a BIFL product, but there can be a tendency to push towards recommending only buying the best of everything. Like, I cook a lot at home, so it made sense to buy a $200 chef's knife that I'll get tons of use from and decent sharpening stones to maintain the edge. I listen to a ton of music, so I've dropped probably around $1500 into a pretty good pair of headphones, a DAC and an amp. On the other hand, I solder like once every couple of years, so getting my cheapo $40 Amazon special made more sense than dropping $500 on a much better soldering iron that offers features I simply don't need and won't benefit from. Sometimes good enough is exactly that, but it can be a nuance lost in these discussions.

Heck, even though I use them several hours a day, my hearing just isn't that good for me to justify spending a substantial amount upgrading my current audio gear. Even if there is an improvement to be had, I'm not sure it would be something I could even notice, so I'm not tempted to go down the rabbit-hole of upgrading my DAC, amp or headphones, as it would be chasing diminishing returns that I'm not even sure would be perceptible for me at a simple biological level.

Hotdogger. Doesn't work as advertised.

My dental aligners :(

I've been trying to get braces since I was a teenager, so long that I kind of lost sight of why I wanted braces. I was almost 30 when I finally took my savings to an orthodontist and told him I wanted braces, and he told me that the aligners would work better than braces.

And he was right. That's not the problem. I got so caught up with the general idea of braces that I'd forgotten that my goal as a kid was to fix my jaw, not my teeth. Even braces won't do that at my age. Those savings would have been better spent on surgery.

My 50" TV. I use it everyday, but I could have invested the money in a berrer place. Like mutual funds, or buying new hardware for my homeserver.