9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

[hhfarang]

I've read this opinion piece on many other forums and blogs and have searched but can't find who was the original author. It is an interesting and thought provoking read in my opinion and most of it fairly accurate. The only one I can fault is "Music". While the music industry is indeed in trouble and their delivery and marketing methods are changing rapidly, I think there will always be new music as it is one of the earliest creative forms of art on the planet.

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

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 Cheque
Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with cheque by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the cheque. 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. 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.

All we will have left that can't be changed are "Memories".
And then probably Alzheimer’s will take that away from you too !

[buksida]

You wont get me putting all the things I own digitally into the hands of Google or Apple.

Which links to number 9 in that privacy has already disappeared thanks to the likes of Google and Apple!

[Homer]

>9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

Sometimes I think such lists are stupid on purpose, just to stir up comment activity.

1. The Post Office

Don't know about other countries, but the US Constitution requires the feds to run one. Courier services don't deliver to all addresses, the post office does. The post office will morph into a commitment shared by a consortium of courier companies to deliver to the entire country.

3. The Newspaper

Yes, except for tiny operators. We're sure going to miss printing presses when the government figures how to make the internet go dark when it suits them.

4. The Book

Print on demand will create physical books for places you wouldn't dare bring a laptop or eReader.

5.The Land Line Telephone

The current phone companies will go belly up. Others will buy the wiring for next to nothing. Among the services they'll offer over those lines will be voice communications.

6.Music

Music will be played at the music publishing industry's funeral. Copies of the songs will be both sold and given away.

7.Television

The medium is too addictive to go away quietly. The spectrum allocation has to be reassigned for TV to disappear. Those of certain political inclinations will fight that because they think it's unfair that poor people can't afford computers.

8.The "Things" That You Own

Anybody trusts the cloud as the only respoitory of irreplaceable files gets what they deserve.

[STEVE G]

I suppose in the case of the book and newspapers, it's just a case of a change in format rather than them disappearing.
I already pay to read newspaper print editions on the net and download e-books but it's just the paper that has disappeared.

[Randy Cornhole]

I haven't had a landline telephone for at least 15 years here in the UK.

I never use the post office or buy a newspaper.

Privacy has nearly gone already.

I would like to add - Money or more precisely cash. Everything will be bought or sold using cards.

[dtaai-maai]

I'd add 'courtesy' to that list.

[migrant]

I'd add 'courtesy' to that list.

For the most part it is already gone!

[Jimbob]

The post office
My local council now sends out non essential advice out with the junk mail delivries.
I have to plaw through the advertising crap to find if the water/power interruptionis are coming or garbage/trash pickup day has changed.

I would think cheap air travel as we now it will diminish as fuel stocks diminish thern disappear for the common man..

[dozer]

The Great in Great Britain

[moja]

I would add common sense to the list; but that seems to have disappeared a long while ago

[wpcoe]

The *only* reason I have a land-line telephone is to send faxes (from my computer.)

I still have to deal with corporate entities and government bureaucracies that *require* documentation by fax!

I'm retired, but my ex-employer, the goverment agency that inherited my pension plan, and my credit union back home all still require I transmit documentation via fax -- which, or course, maxes out at 200 dpi in greyscale -- versus sending a crystal clear, full-color .jpg scan of the document as an e-mail attachment. Un-f***ing-believable...

[Pleng]

The only one I can fault is "Music". While the music industry is indeed in trouble and their delivery and marketing methods are changing rapidly, I think there will always be new music as it is one of the earliest creative forms of art on the planet.

Yup. The death of the music industry will be the best thing to ever happen to music; bring it on!

[Spitfire]

Hopefully, I'll live long enough to see all the slap-stick bells/whistles and silly noises etc, that infect the Thai TV programs in general, disappear. It would be nice to see humour progress here to the next level and be convinced that things do change, even if slowly.

[PeteC]

How about: hair, teeth, hearing, eyesight, libido, appetite, memory, patience and savings. Pete

[hhfarang]

How about: hair, teeth, hearing, eyesight, libido, appetite, memory, patience and savings. Pete

I've already lost 5 out of that list of 9 Pete... well 4 really, as I never had any patience to begin with, but my appetite gets stronger as I age (hence my frequent postings in "Feeding Time" ). I wish I would lose it so I could lose some weight!