system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why did the English alphabet get rid of letters like þ and æ even though they are still used today?

For those who don't know, þ makes the th- sound in that, the, there... And æ makes a sound in words like apple, bad, sad etc.
gpt
In many cases before then printing press came along, the english language was in huge flux.  People did what was convenient, or what they thought was more true to latin or greek origin (even when it wasn't).  Pronunciations weren't uniform and spellings less so, and they could change dramatically in only a few short decades.  Then, at arguably the worst possible moment, the printing press came along and fixed the language in its current hodgepodge.