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Ten Things That Will Eventually Disappear In Our Lifetime

This is USA oriented, but Canada and the rest will not be far behind. 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,
FedEx, 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 check 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 "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 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. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)
Once called Penmanship. 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. 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.. "They" will try
to get you to buy something else. Again and again and again.

All we will have left that which can't be changed... are our "Memories."
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