Some Things that May Disappear in our Lifetime.....

I saw the following online and although it is a bit of a read I thought it was interesting..........

The Post Office:

Get ready to imagine a world

without the post office. Financial problems make it

improbable that the traditional post office functions

can be sustained. Most of the mail being handled is

bills and junk mail. Email, Fed EX, and UPS have

just about wiped out the minimum revenues needed

to keep the post office alive.

Cheques:

Britain is already laying the

groundwork to do away with cheques 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.

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, the bread

man, 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.

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 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 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.

The Land Line Telephone:

 Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it any more. Most people keep it because

they've always had it, but you are paying double charges for that extra service.

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 are the problem. The

record labels and the radio conglomerates are

simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music

purchased today is classed as a "catalogue item",

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".

Television:

Revenues to the networks are down

dramatically. People are watching TV and movies

streamed to their computers, and they are 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 is time for the cable companies to be

put out of our misery ... let people choose what they

want to watch online and through Netflix.

The "Things" That You Own:

Many of the 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 reinstall

it if need be but all of that is changing.

Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up

their "cloud services". That means when you turn

on a computer the internet will be built into the

operating system. So Windows, Google, and the

Mac OS will be directly connected to the web. 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, your books

or whatever else from any laptop or handheld

device. That's the good news ... but will you

actually "own" this stuff or will it be able to

disappear at any moment in a big "poof"? Will

most of the things in our lives be disposable and

whimsical?

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. 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 the ads you receive will reflect those

habits.

All we have that can't be changed are memories.