(Depends how long our lifetimes are)

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 Cheque

Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away

with cheques by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a

year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead

to the eventual demise of the cheque. 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.  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.

  all we will have left that can’t be changed are “Memories”.