Ten things that will disappear in our lifetime.

email from a friend and scioto ^ | 4/22/2018 | unknown

[sodpoodle]

Ten Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

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".

Logic is dead. Excellence is punished. Mediocrity is rewarded. And dependency is to be revered.. This is present-day North America. When crooks rob banks they go to prison. When they rob the taxpayer they get re-elected

[libertylover]

...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.

Junk mail IS the primary revenue source for the Post Office, not stamps for letters to your mother.

[TexasGator]

My cellphone call quality is very good and the cost is only marginally higher but it pays for itself when shopping or traveling around.

[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

We traded privacy for anonymity a long time ago. The world is becoming more like a 'whack-a-mole' game. If you step out of the 'norm', you get whacked back into place. "All in all, your just another brick in the wall."

[TruthWillWin]

And if Trump fails at draining the swamp add Freedom to the list.

[GingisK]

I have found that technical information kept on the web is significantly inferior to technical information found in books. When people write books they seem to pay more attention to logical organization of the material and depth of content. When they write for the web they provide little information and lots of circular links. Microsoft is the world’s largest offender of degraded quality of technical information.

[libertylover]

Traffic lights are likely to vanish as self-driving cars establish a safety record superior to humans, leading to a ban on non-self-driving cars.

Now there's an interesting item I hadn't expected and I suspect it to be true. I'd guess that by 2050 (or earlier) most cars will be self-driving. There will be a period of overlap where it's still legal to self-drive, followed by the outlawing of self-drive cars and the removal of traffic lights, as you predict.

[GingisK]

One blast of EMP, and the books will come back. ;-D

[Drew68]

6) I can’t say, but I do believe live music is alive and well.

Sadly, it's on the decline. The live music scene is dying out. Bands used to have to cut their teeth on the bar and club circuit as they built up a following. The smaller venues that host these bands are closing down one after the next. The bar scene in general is dying out and the few remaining are choosing DJs or paying music licensing fees over a 4-5 piece band with a soundman.

[usconservative]

Logic is dead. Excellence is punished. Mediocrity is rewarded. And dependency is to be revered.. This is present-day North America. When crooks rob banks they go to prison. When they rob the taxpayer they get re-elected.

Posts like this make me glad I'm far closer to the end of my life than I am the beginning of it. The future ain't looking good, we're headed for another dark age.

[Jim W N]

11. Common Sense.

[TexasGator]

OTOH I have found info on the web that I would have never found in ten lifetimes at the library.

[usconservative]

And if Trump fails at draining the swamp add Freedom to the list.

You think we still have freedom in this country? Just try exercising your first amendment rights in this country and watch how fast the libtards on social media try getting you fired from your job and making your life a living hell.

[NTHockey]

Amazing. Most comments are about telephone communication. Are we not concerned about privacy loss? No privacy means government control of everything, even thoughts.

There’s a war in full force and we worry about creature comforts. The Foundinf Fathers would call us cowards and wonder why they risked life and personal wealth.

[spintreebob]

Post Office? terribly managed. That is why it is in trouble.

It should be sold to private investors that exclude FEDEX, UPS and AMAZON to maintain competition.

The real estate alone will bring many billions of dollars in a sale. One of the reasons the Post Office is so inefficient is even new post offices are located with the horse and buggy mentality.

There is upside and downside to living in remote rural areas, just as there is upside and downside to living in the city. Rural residents need to be honest about the reality of their choice. The Post Office is a good example.

[Larry Lucido]

There are still a lot of business offices, and there is no substitute for a good multi-line desk phone with a decent speaker function.

Of course, you need to make sure that anyone on "hold" can't hear the conversation you are having on the other line....

[GingisK]

I have found stuff in books that will never be found on the web.

[GingisK]

When four are gathered in conspiracy, three are agents of the king.

[warsaw44]

Agreed.

I am a small time eBay / Etsy seller who uses the post office almost every day. There are so many of us out there who rely on the relative low cost of the post office for shipping.

I could not use Fedex, UPS at anywhere the same costs.

Also the writers estimation of books going the way of the Dodo
bird might be incorrect. I read somewhere that the popularity of ebooks and the like has leveled off.

I stare at a laptop all day long and look forward to reading
an actual book the end of the day. I do not want to stare at a tablet in order to read the latest from a favorite author.

[neverevergiveup]

"#4: electronic gadgets can never offer the ability to quickly thumb through a book to read bits and pieces here and there... Electronically, it is very hard to thumb through the pages."

I agree entirely, and this is actually a problem with electronic medical records. If paper charts are well-organized, it's much easier to access information by flipping to appropriate sections (e.g. previous procedures, original operative notes, etc.) while dictating a note off a chart, as compared to trying to find everything and navigate multiple fields in an electronic record. Maybe if they were organized better, unlike the POS Epic program, it would be less painful.

[Romans Nine]

You win!!