Posted on 08/03/2017 1:14:19 PM PDT by sodpoodle
Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime
This is USA oriented, but Canada and 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.
Maybe not in the seniors of today lifetimes but more likely in our children’s.
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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
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 of that which can't be changed.......are our "Memories."
And some of us have already lost them!
We’ll be right behind them.
Correction: Political parties.
Many people are divesting themselves of useless items, and at this point can you think of anything more useless?
you know what I miss most?
A wind up clock with its glow in the dark hands.
Tick tock tick tock.
Yes they are.
11. Barry Manilow. Please.
Latin music sucks
The Post Office - would require a Constitutional amendment since it is required in the Constitutuion.
The Check - This has been predicted for a long time, people seem to love getting balance transfer checks and signature loans in the mail.
The Newspaper - Probably.
The Book - No, Books are a non-volatile storage medium which can last centuries.
The land Line - People who like this will switch to VOIP.
Music - The RIAA is dying a deserved death. If you are not finding new music, you are not looking in the right places. Most of the best music these days are being self published on sites like youtube, spotify, band camp and similar websites.
Television revenues - Time for a paradigm shift in this industry.
The things you own - Memory is cheaper than ever for those that prefer it.
Cursive Writing - Like other things it is dead for the masses, but will still be around.
Privacy - I will always have privacy in my own home, as I do not purchase products that spy on me.
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.
How is that "music dying"? Music will still be around, even if the "music industry" dies off. There was music before the "music industry" came along and music will survive whatever happens to the industry.
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.
That goes for books and art and audio and video recordings, but all the pants and sweaters and dresses and wrenches and lamps and tchotchkes that people have cluttering their houses aren't going to be migrating to "the cloud" any time soon.
Wrong about books. Ebook sales are falling off. Consumers don’t like reading on their phones, and don’t want to bother lugging around another gadget. Not to mention purchasers of ebooks don’t actually own the ebooks. And ebook prices are still too high.
New music is dying. Seriously, how do you improve on what has already been recorded?
There was a lot of great music made in the 70s that was unknown then, that is being discovered now by new generations.
9 and 10 are the only 2 they’re at all accurate on.
#10 - Privacy was the foundation for abortion. Pretty sure that’s gonna be fought tooth and nail. Penumbras and emanations from Griswold won’t go down easily.
I watched with fascination a Millennial woman banker doing some fancy printing on a form.
It is wondrous, what these so-called futurists foresee, sometimes.
I wonder if the ‘pos(t)er at Scioto’, has ever gone through a huge natural disaster, leaving not one atom of their precious posessions intact. I think not. I submit, for the viewing public, my witness .. Hurricane Katrina. The town of Buras, LA., was wiped clean off the face of the Earth, and most folks with it.
I am a writer, both by (gasp) pen and ink, and by digital means. “Cursive writing”, a.k.a. “Penmanship”, once the pride of the American business world (either Palmerian or Spencerian), IS BEING RE-INTRODUCED INTO SCHOOL CURRICULA THIS SCHOOL YEAR!! Books, papers, journals, letters, are all things that have that air of immortality or notoriety, and are physical aids in filling in the gaps of history. “The cloud” could be seized by a censorship nut, and there goes the truth that folks have deposited to this ethereal media.
As long as there exist federal government unions, the post office will always be alive, even if it is not to openly pander for Hillary Clinton.
Music will exist, even to be sung in the shower. The present convention of “anyone-with-an-electronic-device-can-sing” nonsense is finding its dregs. Music, as a means of instruction for those wishing to actually learn to play an instrument, shall always exist. When the lights go out, and it is longer than the life of “your electronic device of choice”, how else can you read sheet music?? How else could you HEAR music??
One more thing about books. Ask someone how many cookbooks, ‘Harlequin’, or even ... “Game of Thrones”, “Harry Potter”, “Nero Wolfe” books grace their shelves.
That's right! Everything old is new again.
Vinyl record sales have been skyrocketing, recently experiencing an annual growth of 10 percent, according to The Washington Post. More than 9.2 million records were sold in 2014, according to Time. By 2015, sales had jumped to $416 million, the highest level since 1988, Fortune reported.
Sony plans to bring back vinyl records
I know several "seasoned" individuals who have no access to the internet or other electronic means of paying bills. One of them still uses Princess phone.
The bit about music was very interesting. I still like 70s and 80s music and listen to essentially anything I want on YouTube.
I can understand paying for a live concert. But do people still actually buy recorded music?
Why would they do that?
And double why given the current crap that passes for “pop music”.
Here you go.
Yet another group of predictions from someone that will have no repercussions if they are wrong. Nice job to have where you can make things up and never are required to be correct. Sort of like being a global warming scientist or an liberal economist.
I rarely use the APC at the post office.
When it comes to newswrap papers, I never buy them. It’s probably been a decade since I purchased one.
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