9 Things That Will Disappear In
Our Lifetime
Ready or not, here they come ..... RATHER, THERE THEY GO!
1. The Post Office
Get ready to imagine a world without the Post Office.
They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to
sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped
out the minimum revenue needed to keep the Post Office alive. Most of
your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away
with check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of
dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions
will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right
into the death of the Post Office. If you never paid your bills by mail
and never received them by mail, the Post Office would absolutely
go out of business.
3. The Newspaper
The younger generation simply doesn't read the
newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print
edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As
for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in
mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper
and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with
Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for
paid subscription services.
4. The Book
You say you will never give up the physical book that
you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing
about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But
I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for
half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music.
The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore
online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price
is less than half that of a real book. And think of the
convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead
of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to
see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget
instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone
Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local
calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because
they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that
extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call
customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your
minutes.
6. Music
This is one of the saddest parts of the change story.
The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal
downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a
chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and
corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio
conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music
purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music
that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This
is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and
disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for
Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary,
"Before the Music Dies."
7. Television
Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not
just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies
streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots
of other things that take up the time that used to be spent
watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the
lowest common denominator. TV News Media is running the
Country.(Politics) Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about
every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it.
It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let
the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own
Many of the very possessions that we used to own are
still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They
may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a
hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and
documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install
it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and
Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That
means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built
into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be
tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open
something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved
to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the
cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your
books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's
the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff"
or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big
"Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be
disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet
and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a
CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy
If there ever was a concept that we can look back on
nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a
long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the
buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But
you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where
you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street
View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles,
and your ads will change to reflect those habits. "They" will
try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.
NOTE: The National Debt is not on this list.
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