Changes

Whether changes are good or bad depend, in part, upon how we adapt to them. But ready or not, changes are coming! Below are some upcoming changes:

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the Post Office. The US Postal Service is so deep in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, FedEx, and UPS have just about wiped out the revenue needed to keep the US Postal Service alive. Most of today's mail one gets are junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain has already laid 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 people no longer receive or pay bills by mail, there goes another Post Office revenue source.

3. The Newspaper. Most, if not all, of today's younger generation neither read nor subscribe to the newspaper. So, the newspaper may soon go the way of the milkman as well. 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 on-line subscription services.

4. The Book. While many say that they will never give up the physical book that they hold in their hand, the same thing has been said about downloading music via iTunes. People wanted a hard copy CD but that has quickly changed when many found that they could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. One can browse for books online and even read a preview chapter before buying. And the price is less than half that of a real hard copy book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flipping pages 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 an electronic 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 really need a land line anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But one is paying for an unused extra service. Practically all cell phone companies now allow you to call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the upcoming changes. The music industry is dying a slow death not just because of illegal downloading but also because of 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 headed for self-destruction. Over 40% of the music purchased today are "catalog items" --- i.e., traditional music and older established artists that the public is familiar with. This is also true of the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out Steve Knopper's book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies".

7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically not only because of the economy, but also because many people are now watching programs and movies streamed into their computers, and are playing games and doing all sorts of other things that take up the time that used to be spent on watching TV. Prime time show viewing has decreased. And if cable rates continue to skyrocket and commercials continue to run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds, soon the cable companies will also be extinct. People now prefer to watch what they want without commercial interruption on line or through Netflix.

8. The "[Entertainment] Things". Many of the very "entertainment things" that we now own we may not [actually need to] own 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, and are backed up on a CD or DVD, which you can always "reinstall", if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all putting the "finishing touches" to their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on your computer, the Internet is automatically built in and will be part of the operating system --- Windows, Google, and Mac OS will be tied directly to the Internet. So, by simply clicking on an icon, it will open something in "the Internet cloud", and if you choose to save something, it will be saved to "the cloud". But you may eventually pay a monthly subscription fee to "the cloud" provider.

In this virtual world, you can access your music, books, or whatever "entertainment" accessories and toys from any laptop or hand-held device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all disappear at any moment in a big "poof"? Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? What if 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 is just about gone. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. You can be sure that 24/7, you can be monitored. "The monitor" will who you are, what you are doing, and where you are via GPS coordinates and Google street view. Each time you buy something, your spending habits and other personal information are put into a zillion profiles, and ads you receive will reflect those habits. And "they" will try to get you to buy various goods and services again and again.

The only personal possession which can not be changed or monitored would be one's memories, assuming that Alzheimer's disease or senility does not destroy one's mind and memory bank totally.

Author Unknown