No self-driving cars, no virtual-reality PCs. For all the promise of futuristic technology, it ends up entering our lives as a series of annoyances: spam, impossible-to-open plastic packaging, those pagers you hold while waiting for your table at Applebee's. Laptop users invade our cafes. Cell phone rings interrupt our conversations. And the future will just make it worse.

NICK DOUGLAS — In the pure marketplace, the best idea should win, and a superior business should always trump the old behemoth, right? Yeah right. Marketing makes Go Daddy the most-used domain registrar; inertia keeps Starbucks on top even though the quality's gone to hell. Here are eight tech businesses we all use that should be replaced, but for one reason or another still rule our lives. Don't worry, the alternatives are listed too.

NICK DOUGLAS — God, these people are uptight! The recent tiffs over some startupper dissing the women of Microsoft and another startupper's wandering wifi sniffer reminded me one of the reasons this culture bores me to tears: You can't say anything interesting without offending a crowd of prigs that make anyone of substance feel like Evita staring down the Argentinian aristocracy. Well, since I've nothing to lose, I'm going to say the six things you can't say at the parties, conferences and meetups of Silicon Valley.

NICK DOUGLAS — Dear friend, I regret to inform you I cannot use your product just because I know you. I know this hurts, especially since you see me using a competing product, but you have to understand me. Hear me out, and you won't — hey, hey, calm down, it's gonna be okay — hear me out and you won't feel so bad, okay?