20 Products From the 70s People Stopped Buying

The music was loud. The colors were loud. The carpet was very, very loud.

And the products people bought reflected all of it.

I made a classic mistake once, assuming that things people loved for decades would simply keep going forever.

The 70s proved that even the most beloved products can vanish faster than a Polaroid picture fading in reverse.

Man, I really hated those avocado green appliances, I even put them at #12 on this list.

1. Tab Cola

Tab was the diet soda of the 70s.

Women across America reached for that pink can like it was a lifestyle choice.

At its peak, Tab had millions of loyal drinkers who swore by its slightly bitter, chemical-y taste.

But here’s the catch: once Diet Coke hit shelves in 1982, Tab never recovered.

Coca-Cola officially discontinued it in 2020.

For decades, Tab was the only real option if you wanted a diet soda. That kind of loyalty is hard to find with any product today.

2. Eight-Track Tapes

If you had a car in the 70s, you probably had a stack of eight-track tapes on the seat next to you.

They were bulky, they jammed constantly, and songs sometimes cut out mid-chorus to switch tracks.

But nobody cared. It was music in your car, and that felt like magic.

By 1982, eight-track players had almost completely vanished from store shelves.

Cassettes were cheaper, smaller, and far more reliable.

Millions of eight-track collections were simply boxed up and thrown away when the format died, taking entire music libraries with them.

3. Polaroid Instant Cameras (Original Film)

Shaking a Polaroid picture was one of the most satisfying things you could do in the 70s.

Watch a blurry image slowly come to life. Pure joy.

But the film was expensive, and each photo cost a small fortune compared to a roll of 35mm film.

That’s why families eventually switched to disposable cameras and then, of course, digital.

The original Polaroid company filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

At family gatherings and birthday parties, that instant photo was the highlight of the evening. Nothing else came close to that feeling at the time.

4. Fondue Sets

Every kitchen in the early 70s seemed to have a fondue set.

Melted cheese, chocolate, or hot oil at the center of the table. Guests gathered around with long forks.

It felt sophisticated and fun at the same time.

But the trend faded fast. Fondue sets became the gift nobody knew what to do with after the first two uses.

By the late 70s, most sets had been quietly moved to the back of a cabinet.

Garage sales in the 80s and 90s were full of fondue sets still in their original boxes, barely touched.

5. Jell-O Salads

Yes, this was a real thing people made and proudly brought to dinner parties.

Lime Jell-O filled with shredded carrots, celery, and cream cheese. On a lettuce leaf. As a salad.

It sounds strange now, but in the 70s it was considered an impressive dish.

Gelatin mold recipes appeared in almost every major cookbook and women’s magazine of the era.

Jell-O sales have been declining steadily since the 1990s as food trends moved toward fresh, whole ingredients.

Church potlucks and holiday tables across America once featured at least one wobbling gelatin mold as a point of pride.

6. Rotary Dial Telephones

Before speed dial, before smartphones, there was the rotary phone.

You stuck your finger in a little hole and spun that dial one number at a time.

Dialing a phone number with a lot of nines and zeros felt like it took half your afternoon.

But it was all anyone knew, and it worked just fine for decades.

By the mid-80s, push-button phones had taken over almost completely.

Many families held onto their rotary phones long after touch-tone service arrived, simply because they still worked perfectly fine.

7. Lawn Darts (Jarts)

Lawn darts were exactly what they sound like. Heavy metal-tipped darts. Thrown high into the air. In your backyard.

Families played this game at cookouts and neighborhood get-togethers all through the 70s.

It was genuinely fun. It was also genuinely dangerous.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned lawn darts entirely in 1988 after multiple serious injuries, including fatalities involving children.

You are better off with cornhole.

Looking back, it is remarkable that lawn darts were sold in toy aisles right alongside board games and beach balls for as long as they were.

8. Home Perms

In the 70s, curly hair was everything.

Home perm kits like Toni and Lilt flew off drugstore shelves as women tried to get that big, bouncy look without paying salon prices.

The smell was legendary. That chemical combination of ammonia and thioglycolate could clear a room.

Home perm kit sales peaked in the late 70s and early 80s, then collapsed as straight and natural styles came back into fashion.

By the 90s, the home perm aisle had shrunk to almost nothing.

Mothers and daughters often did each other’s perms on weekend afternoons, turning a drugstore kit into a bonding ritual that smelled absolutely terrible.

9. S&H Green Stamps

Long before loyalty points and cashback apps, there were Green Stamps.

You collected them at the grocery store, the gas station, and even the dry cleaner.

Then you licked them and stuck them into little booklets. Enough booklets got you a toaster, a lamp, or a set of dishes.

At their peak in the 1960s and 70s, S&H printed three times more stamps than the U.S. Postal Service.

The program faded through the 80s as discount pricing became a stronger draw than rewards.

Entire kitchen drawers were dedicated to half-filled stamp booklets that families intended to finish someday and rarely did.

10. Shag Carpeting

Thick, fluffy, floor-to-ceiling shag carpet was the ultimate 70s home statement.

It came in avocado green, harvest gold, burnt orange, and every other color that has since been retired from polite society.

Vacuuming it required a special rake-like tool. Dropping anything small into it meant it was simply gone forever.

By the mid-80s, interior design trends had shifted hard toward hardwood floors and low-pile carpet.

Shag carpeting became shorthand for everything dated about 70s decor.

Real estate listings in the 90s actually used the phrase “shag carpet removed” as a selling point, as if it were an upgrade on par with a new roof.

11. Betamax Players

Sony released Betamax in 1975 and truly believed it had the future of home video locked up.

The picture quality was actually sharper than VHS.

But here’s the catch: Betamax tapes only held about an hour of recording time at first, while VHS could hold a full movie.

By 1987, VHS had captured over 90 percent of the home video market.

Sony officially stopped making Betamax cassettes in 2016, quietly ending a 40-year battle it had already lost decades earlier.

People who invested heavily in Betamax collections found themselves with shelves full of tapes and nothing left to play them on.

12. Avocado Green Appliances

If you remodeled your kitchen in the 70s, there is a good chance you picked avocado green.

Refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers, and even stand mixers came in that distinctive muted green color.

It was everywhere. Then suddenly, it was embarrassing.

By the mid-80s, almond and then stainless steel took over, and avocado green became a punchline.

Major appliance manufacturers phased out the color almost entirely by 1985.

Homeowners who had just finished a full avocado green kitchen remodel in 1978 found themselves already out of style just a few years later.

13. CB Radios

After the 1973 oil crisis, truckers used CB radios to share tips on where to find fuel and avoid speed traps.

By the mid-70s, CB radios had exploded into mainstream culture. Regular drivers had them. Kids wanted them.

The movie “Smokey and the Bandit” and the song “Convoy” made CBs feel like the coolest thing on the road.

CB radio sales hit 11 million units in 1977 alone.

Then cell phones arrived, and the craze evaporated almost overnight.

Families who spent good money on a CB radio setup in 1977 were using it as a doorstop by 1985.

14. Tang

Tang became famous when NASA used it on early space missions, and that endorsement made it a household name through the 60s and 70s.

Moms mixed it into water as a quick substitute for orange juice.

It tasted sweet, artificial, and nothing like actual oranges. Kids loved it anyway.

Tang sales in the United States declined sharply through the 80s and 90s as fresh juice and natural drinks became more popular.

It still sells well internationally, but it is largely forgotten in the American market.

A whole generation grew up thinking Tang was what astronauts drank every single morning, which made it feel like the most exciting breakfast drink imaginable.

15. Wringer Washing Machines

Some households in the early 70s still used wringer washers, especially in rural areas.

You fed wet clothes through two rubber rollers that squeezed out the water by hand-cranking or with a motor.

It was hard work, and the rollers could be genuinely dangerous. Fingers and hair got caught.

Automatic spin-cycle washing machines made the wringer model unnecessary, and sales had dropped to near zero by the late 70s.

Most people were thrilled to see them go.

For many families, replacing the wringer washer with an automatic machine was one of the most welcome upgrades their household ever made.

16. Leisure Suits

The leisure suit was the defining fashion statement of the mid-70s man.

Polyester fabric in tan, powder blue, or burnt orange, worn with a wide collar shirt unbuttoned just a little too far.

It was designed to be casual enough for the weekend but sharp enough for a night out.

By 1979, leisure suits had become a symbol of everything people wanted to leave behind about the decade.

Department stores that once stocked entire floors of them were quietly clearing them out by 1980.

Men who wore leisure suits with total confidence in 1976 were donating them to Goodwill just three years later without a second thought.

17. Lava Lamps

Lava lamps were invented in the 1960s but hit their true peak of popularity in the early 70s.

Blobs of colored wax are drifting slowly through liquid in a glowing glass bottle. Hypnotic and strange.

They showed up in bedrooms, dorm rooms, and living rooms across the country.

Sales dropped sharply by the late 70s as the groovy aesthetic gave way to a cleaner, more minimal look in home decor.

They made a brief comeback in the 90s but never recaptured their original cultural moment.

Sitting in a dark room watching a lava lamp was considered a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening in 1972.

18. Manual Typewriters

Through most of the 70s, the typewriter was still the tool of choice for writers, students, and office workers alike.

That clatter of keys. The satisfying ding of the carriage return. The smell of the ribbon ink.

But electric typewriters were already cutting into manual sales, and personal computers would finish the job entirely.

By the mid-80s, manual typewriter sales had fallen to a fraction of what they once were.

Within a decade, they had essentially vanished from offices and classrooms across the country.

College students who typed their papers on a manual typewriter in 1975 were using word processors by 1985, and the transition felt almost instant.

19. Candy Cigarettes

Candy cigarettes were sold in little paper packs designed to look almost exactly like real cigarette boxes.

Kids would pretend to smoke them, blowing on the powdered sugar end to make a little puff of white dust.

Nobody thought much of it at the time. They were just candy.

Growing awareness about tobacco marketing and its influence on children led many retailers to quietly pull them from shelves through the 80s and 90s.

Several countries banned them outright. In the U.S., they faded mostly due to changing attitudes rather than a formal ban.

The idea of handing a child a candy shaped like a cigarette and letting them practice the habit is something that genuinely would not fly today.

20. Encyclopedias (Door-to-Door Sets)

In the 70s, a salesman showing up at your door to sell a full set of encyclopedias was a completely normal occurrence.

Families spent hundreds of dollars on sets like World Book or Britannica, often on a payment plan.

Having a full encyclopedia set on your shelf was a point of pride. It meant you valued knowledge and education.

Encyclopedia Britannica stopped printing its physical set entirely in 2012 after 244 years in publication.

The internet had made the entire concept obsolete almost overnight.

Parents who sacrificed to buy a full encyclopedia set for their children in 1974 could not have imagined that the same information would one day be available instantly and for free on a device that fit in a shirt pocket.