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amethyst_konekoWhether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But ready or not, here they come.
1. 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. Checks
Britain is already laying the ground work to do away with checks 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. 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. Books
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages.
However, you now 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. 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 but 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 but the fact that 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.
8. "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 (This was called "Cursive" in my day.)
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. 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".
*sigh* Any other dinosaurs out there feel my pain? :(
1. 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. Checks
Britain is already laying the ground work to do away with checks 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. 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. Books
You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages.
However, you now 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. 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 but 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 but the fact that 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.
8. "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 (This was called "Cursive" in my day.)
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. 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".
*sigh* Any other dinosaurs out there feel my pain? :(
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no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 12:08 am (UTC)And I refuse to believe books will ever go away. If the Nook that has been sitting on my coffee table for months is any indication, there are those of us who will never cave to the pressure to "e-read".
(And if newspapers go away, what the hell am I going to use to line my parrots' cages? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 12:35 am (UTC)Books are dwindling fast so there may be a lot of truth to this. Barnes and Noble is about the only book story left in town and who knows how much business they get nowadays. People just don't understand the "feel" of an actual book in your hand.
*snerk!* I guess you'll be left downloading a copy of the paper and printing it out, assuming they don't do away with printers and copy paper that is! ^_^
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 12:43 am (UTC)While book production is definitely dwindling (and nowhere is that more depressingly apparent than with translated manga) I don't think it will disappear in our lifetime, so I'm not too worried about that. And personally, I'd sooner buy a hard copy of an older title I haven't read yet than purchase a new digital book.
All this technology has some advantages, that's for sure. But conversely, I almost feel sad for what people of future generations will be missing out on.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 06:59 am (UTC)And what would I do without a post office??? I love sending cards and letters and pressies to people and I don't think I could afford the UPS charges :(
no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 01:34 am (UTC)I'm hoping that the post office will go thru some sort of restructuring and stop the decline. If not, hello FedEx. :/
no subject
Date: 2014-03-12 11:18 am (UTC)