Joe Willie On The Shrimpbox: "Vanishing Things"

One person's opinion but it does seem possible

As received

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 cheques by 2018.
In Europe they are hardly used now.
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're 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 simply self-destruction.
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 all 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.

.....All we will have that can't be changed are Memories......
Take Heed!

Author Unknown.