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.
Read more...
