Forget the buggy whips and high button shoes…what goods and services do you seeing going obsolete in the next 5-10 years?Some that I predict:
-Newspapers (at least printed versions)-why mess with paper when you can read it online?
-Service stations: cars will have maintainence-free engines, with service at 100,000 miles.
-Post office: all mail will go via email,noneed for paper mail
=RealEstate salespeople: all home sales will be done via internet-based systems
-Phone Lines, linesmen: all communication will be wireless
-Medical Checkups: yur physical condition will be continously monitored by yur homePC. If a change is detected, your doctor will be notified.
Anyway, post your ideas about what will go obsolete, and what will replace these things.
Public telephone boxes - there’s still a requirement for them, but they are becoming less and less economic for the phone companies to maintain, due to the ubiquity of mobile phones.
I don’t think the printed page is going away anytime soon; sure you can read newspapers online, if you’re in close proximity to a computer - what if you want to catch up on the news while travelling on the tube? Sure you can download an eBook, but what if you want to read it in the bath?
I’m going to make the bold prediction that physical cash currency will experience its demise before printed media, but neither of these in the next decade.
Buggy whips are still extemely useful.
Newspapers? I get much of my news online but it’s no substitute for a paper which among other things carries far more local content than I can get anywhere online. When I’m relaxing on Sunday morning in my fortress of solitude on my throne I want my funnies in print form, not on my laptop.
FWIW I do subscribe to some comics I don’t get in my local paper and I’ve enjoyed reading the two books that came with my Palm but we’re a long way from replacing paper. The dream of the paperless office has gotten further away, not closer.
Post office: I see less paper mail certainly but my ISP hasn’t figured out how to send packages.
Phone Lines: This is kind of a mixed one. I do see wireless phones taking over land lines but I still see a wire coming to everyone’s house. I already get my TV, high speed internet and phone on a coax which I see as just an evolution of the phone line. Wireless is great over short distances for data but the wider the coverage area the greater number of people sharing the same bandwidth.
Real estate salespeople: You can get a lot of information online but a good agent brings expertise not available in a database.
Medical checks: The day my health care insurer tries to fit me with USB compatible body probes is the day I start the revolution. Not every condition a doctor will see is so easily quantified by a computer.
Traditional fuel/service stations are already virtually obsolete. Oil change intervals are getting longer but I don’t see oil change centers going away while we’re still using internal combustion engines.
I’m not saying there won’t be changes in all those things you listed but I don’t see any of them becoming complete anachronisms. Let’s see if I can do better.
CRT displays: I think we’re rapidly reaching the point where flat displays will start taking away share from lower priced TVs and computer monitors as they are alerady doing on the high end.
The incandescent light bulb and beloved Edison socket: Perhaps not for all uses but I see the economy of LEDs changing how we light.
Consumer film cameras: Costco still sells a buttload of 35mm film but I see it going away already.
Floppy disks: already happening. Neither of my laptops have one and I don’t intend to order my next desktop with one. CD-R and thumb drives are much more useful.
Consumer magnetic videdo tape: audio tape is no longer made in the US. As for video you can buy a DVD player for $30 and one that can record for less than $100 now.
Longer term, metal airplanes: Airliners have long life cycles but I expect more big planes where the structure is not mainly aluminum.
Do you really expect any of this to come to pass within 5-10 years? I don’t think so.
I’m going to have to disagree with pretty much every item on your list, ralph124. Sorry. 
Newspapers (at least printed versions)-why mess with paper when you can read it online?
While in 5-10 years nearly everyone in an industrialized nation will have at least one computer (IMHO), I cannot see newspapers dying due to the popularity of online news. There are a couple of important reasons why I think this:
[ul]Computers aren’t something you can take with you nearly anywhere. Not even laptops. Handheld computers are an exception, but I can’t imagine trying to read significant quantities of text on one. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to read the news on a computer while using the bathroom. (Granted, I know people have done that, but I doubt it’s common.)[/ul]
[ul]Newspapers are disposable and cheap. At work, my hands get very grubby and when on break I read the newspaper. If there were, instead of a paper, a computer teminal with Internet access, they’d have to get a new keyboard every week due to it being full of gunk. Many people read the paper during breakfast and if they spill a little food on the paper it’s no big deal. If you were to spill something on your computer it’s likely a big deal.[/ul]
[ul]Tradition. In time this will fade, but in 5-10 years? I think even after 20 to 25 years there will still be newspapers.[/ul]
Service stations: cars will have maintainence-free engines, with service at 100,000 miles.
I certainly hope so, since I know almost nothing about cars and things seem to go wrong with them so damned often. But I suspect that in the next 5 or so years cars will actually become more likely to have (minor) trouble due to computer glitches. I sort of agree with this point, though, because I believe the overall trend seems to be towards a “disposable” car - you buy it, you drive it, you toss it, with very little maintenance or upkeep in between. I think the timescale for this is longer than 5 to 10 years, however.
Post office: all mail will go via email,noneed for paper mail
People will still need to send packages. Other than that I agree. In 5 to 10 years, a large portion of non-package mail will be sent as email instead.
Except for credit card offers. We’ll continue to get those in email and hardcopy. sigh
Phone Lines, linesmen: all communication will be wireless.
I mostly disagree. Phone lines, I predict, will be replaced with more efficient methods of transporting data (but use much of the same infrastructure). For example, imagine some form of optical cable used not just for voice communications, but for TV, Internet, and radio as well. Maybe even services we haven’t thought of yet.
Other than cell phones, wireless stuff will be largely limited to inside the home. That is, a line will come in to your home the way phone lines do, but from there it would communicate wirelessly with devices in the home. It’s possible that power would be sent this way as well - not only would you not have to plugged your computer into a phone line, you wouldn’t have to plug it into the wall. (I think this is pushing the 5-10 year limit though.)
Medical Checkups: yur physical condition will be continously monitored by yur homePC. If a change is detected, your doctor will be notified.
A neat idea, but I think this is mostly in the realm of science fiction at present. How would your PC examine you? With a camera to check for off-color skin? A quick, safe, laser scan of your eyes to check for glaucoma? “Sniffing” the air with an artificial nose to detect trace amounts of cancer (the way dogs allegedly can)? Someday, perhaps, but I think it’s going to be closer to 50 years than 5 or 10.
Here are my suggestions for dinosaur products and services:
(On preview, I see I’ve been beat to some of theses. Damn my slow typing!)
[ul]Film cameras - With the advent of digital photography, film cameras are being used less frequently. In 5 to 10 years, I think they will have mostly vanished from the mainstream. (Professional photographers and photo afficianados will still use them, of course. But John and Jane Doe will generally keep their old ones in a closet somewhere and use the digital one their kids got them a few Christmases ago.)[/ul]
[ul]Floppy disks - The CD was supposed to kill the floppy. It maimed it, but failed to deliver the finishing blow. USB thumb drives, however, are ready to deliver the final strike. As much as I love the floppy, I must admit that its future is grim, and probably very short. In ten years or less, nostalgic geeks will be showing their floppies off to amused youngsters.[/ul]
[ul]Nightly network TV news - I’m going a bit out on a limb on this one, but I think that nightly news broadcasts on network TV will dwindle in 5 to 10 years, become largely irrelevant in 15 or less, and mostly extinct in 30. In their place will be cable news channels of a wide variety of biases and viewpoints, as well as network infotainment that’s sorta Cultured Processed News Food. Think “Dateline” or “20/20”. Some of the cable channels will insist that they offer a very wide view of things and don’t cater to a particular set of subjects or biases. They will mostly be lying.[/ul]
[ul]Circuses - When’s the last time you went to the circus? With the growing concern over the treatment of circus animals, and the glaring fact that clowns are scary as hell, circuses seem to be rare as hen’s teeth nowadays. I think in 5 to 10 years, they will be almost entirely extinct save for a couple groups such as Cirque du Soliel. (sp?)[/ul]
I do not really see a debate among all these less than humble opinions.
To IMHO with ye.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Inter-city rail transit in the United States
Even with subsidies, it’s getting harder to justify passenger rail service outside of the Northeast Corridor. Within the next 25 years or so, Amtrak will have to decide whether to invest huge sums into infrastructure upgrades, and Congress will pull the plug.
AM radio
It’s been marginalized already. Under pressure from the telecommunications industry, the FCC will start re-allocating the AM spectrum (like it did with the higher channels of UHF TV) and then the entire band will just disappear.
Electronics repair
This is another industry that’s already almost dead. It won’t be too long before “repair” will consist solely of plugging something into the back of the dead appliance and transfering your personal settings into your new appliance.
If and when they do, could you ask 'em to tell my local Post Office? (several recent packages mangled/delayed/returned to sender)
Regarding the “throwaway car”; it’s already here. In many instances, when dashboard airbags deploy they rip out so much of the dash and surrounding wire looms, the windshield, etc. that insurance companies simply total out rather than repair.
Older cars not quite antique but still quite serviceable can be thrown away for want of a couple of headlamps. this happened to me last year when my '87 Pontiac 6000 was hit by a wayward Expedition. In the old days of universal “buckets” accomodating universal sealed-beam lamps, this wouldn’t have happened, but the short production lives of modern custom applications means that repro lights can cost $300+ apiece if suitable junkyard ones can’t be found.
Last August. I’m curious – where do you live where the circus never comes?
Ringling Bros., Universoul, and a few others tour the country every year. In fact, Ringling Bros. has two traveling companies going simltaneously.
The peak of circuses as cultural events was probably pre WWII, but they’ve managed to stay around for quite a while.
As soon as we can come up with a “boot thumb drive” the floppy is gone, as far as I’m concerned.
I live in Colorado, and come to think of it, I haven’t heard of the circus coming around here for a long time. Years ago, there was a big flap when the circus came to Denver, and I don’t think it’s been back since. Looking at the Wringling Brothers web page, Colorado isn’t even listed in the drop down menu of states. The closest shows are in Kearny, Nebraska and Salina, KS.
In re: the OP - Blockbuster and other movie rental places. Streaming video is already here, give it a year or two for technology to catch up and those places are done, barring a major change in the business model.
Not very likely. The two AM talk radios in the Orlando market are both extremely successful.
I’m with you on the demise of circuses. I’ve never been a big fan of the circus, even as a little kid. And with all the animal rights activism in the world, it’s a wonder elephants, bears, tigers, etc are still being paraded around and made to do tricks. And clowns…don’t get me started!!
Speaking of animals, I think that Zoos are something that are heading toward extinction (what a great pun!). We can get plenty of nature on Discovery Channel and Nat’l Geographic, not to mention the internet and newspapers (hee).
I was also thinking that the greeting card industry is not long for this world. That saddens me because I absolutely LOVE to send cards to my friends and family, but lately I seem to be the only one that does so. People just don’t send cards anymore.
In terms of occupations, I have to say Travel Agent. This is because of the proliferation of online travel websites and the desire of airline companies to cut their commissions paid to agents.
:eek:
I don’t know if you intended to say what I pictured, but it’s still funny.