This is USA oriented, but Canada & the rest will not be far
behind. Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.
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 "catalogue 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. 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.
Joined Handwriting (Cursive
Writing)
Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting"
because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of
some type (pun not
intended)
10.
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 and again.
All we will have left that which can't be changed.......are our
"Memories".
Travis
