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 Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork 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. 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 "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 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. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and
> again.
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