View Full Version : What will become obsolete?
I was thinking today about how the mailman still shows up everyday and it seemed charmingly old-fashioned and thus not likely to be around in a few more years. What other goods and services do you think might not be around in the near future?
Gardenarian
12-30-13, 3:16pm
Newspapers are quickly disappearing. I still see a lot of magazines on the stands; I wonder if they will stick it out.
Libraries are fighting for their lives. Already the library as a depository of knowledge is almost gone; most public libraries now only stock high-circulating items.
Print encyclopedias are going, too.
Disposable grocery bags are already gone here - no plastic is allowed and you have to pay ten cents for paper, so most everybody uses cloth bags now.
Water is increasingly expensive where I live (most pay $100+ per month.) Lawns and sprinklers are disappearing rapidly.
Newspapers are quickly disappearing. I still see a lot of magazines on the stands; I wonder if they will stick it out.
Libraries are fighting for their lives.
We read the daily newspaper (print edition) on our iPads. I also read some magazine or should I say e-zines. The visitor stats for our local library are up a lot for the last couple years. I read library ebooks all the time and love that they are available 24/7 without a drive to the library office. If you go into our local library during the day, there are a lot of people, especially using the computers. I'm not sure they will go away anytime soon; they will just be used differently than the really old days.
Teacher Terry
12-30-13, 5:05pm
I actually love to hold the newpaper in my hand so will be sad if one day I will be forced to read it on the computer. Lawns are disappearing here too -more because of the water shortage but water is getting expensive here too. Eventually I am sure the land line phone will be gone.
Simply Divine
12-30-13, 5:19pm
I foresaw in the early 2000s that journalism would not be a good major for me since it would be so hard to find a job in my field. It's disappointing; I had (actually, still have) potential to be a good journalist, but I don't regret my decision. A few years later the papers in my area had major layoffs. We still get the paper but we also read it online.
Libraries are facing the interesting conundrum of having more patrons while receiving less funding due to the recession. The library in my town actually expanded a few years back to adjust for the traffic because they got a grant. On the other hand, it took my friend 6 years to get a permanent job as a librarian. It makes me glad I didn't go into that field, either. I foresee libraries getting private funding to meet demand. That should be interesting. It's better than arrest warrants for not paying overdue book fines. :~)
I only see print encyclopedias at the library. They're old, too. I think the final blow was that study that showed that Wikipedia was as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica a few years back.
We still use plastic bags where I live; but trendy upper-middle class people bring their cloth bags in so they can be perceived as "environmentally conscious." Then they drive off in their SUVs. >8)
One of the reasons I want a composting toilet is because of the severe drought where I live. However, I don't see how I could get away with disposing humanure. No matter how sterilized I could make it, and even if I just used it on flowerbeds, I don't think it would be a popular thing -- but I also don't want to throw away perfectly good compost in a garbage bag.
Our city is building a huge modern library. I love the sense of community that libraries provide so I hope they don't disappear anytime soon.
An article in our local paper says that camera sales continue to fall as so many now use their phones instead.
My town is considering closing two branch libraries.
iris lilies
12-30-13, 10:43pm
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Libraries are facing the interesting conundrum of having more patrons while receiving less funding due to the recession. The library in my town actually expanded a few years back to adjust for the traffic because they got a grant. On the other hand, it took my friend 6 years to get a permanent job as a librarian. It makes me glad I didn't go into that field, either. I foresee libraries getting private funding to meet demand. That should be interesting. It's better than arrest warrants for not paying overdue book fines. :~)
I don't see private funding of public libraries happening.
As someone who broke Wikipedia when I tried to edit an article, I have to say that medium is too fragile to totally replace information sources of substance. World Book is still publishing a print edition, but I don't know how much longer that will go on.
Libraries here in Southern Oregon are extremely endangered. We've lost them before. Now on limited basis, and not nearly the book inventory of days past.
I consider many of the examples above to be examples of superseding rather than obsolescence:
Newspapers - Electronic media have superseded most of the most important aspects of what newspapers once offered for those who haven't resisted the changes.
Residential Mail Delivery - Most of what we used to receive through this means has been replaced, the medium superseded by more modern media. Just like residential mail delivery replaced going to the post office to pick up your mail, more cost-efficient electronic mail, online billing, and social media are replacing the more expensive residential mail delivery.
(Local) Libraries - It is important to note that originally libraries were destinations, not village services. The concept of a library as a place where the aggregate knowledge of our world and the human condition is collected and available for review hasn't seen any decrease, and won't. Rather, the means by which such knowledge is stored and safeguarded for the future has continued to change as it has since the first bound book replaced the first scroll, and most of that which local libraries offered that destination libraries do not offer has been replaced.
Encyclopedias - Including the distinction "print" implicitly means replacement rather than true obsolescence.
Grocery Bags - Again, simply the medium is changing, from wasteful disposable bags to more durable, washable, reususable bags.
Lawns - This is interesting. I don't really see any sign of this either being superseded or becoming obsolete around here, but out west, as water becomes increasingly precious, I can imagine a wholesale superseding of lawns with various types of hardscape and drought-resistant plantings.
Door-to-door Salespeople/Home Delivery (milk, bread, etc.) - No one mentioned this, but I see Amazon.com's upcoming same-day delivery as an effective replacement for the ability to have someone come to your home to show you some merchandise that you can purchase on the spot. And services like Peapod are going strong.
So has anything really become obsolete? It's really interesting doing research on this. Every article and discussion that I've seen focuses on those things that have been replaced by other things and mistakenly call these instances of obsolescence, rather than highlighting actual cases of obsolescence. Either that, or people start calling the demise of a certain preference of theirs, or the natural changing of culture and behavior over time, as obsolescence.
I did find a few true cases of obsolescence mentioned though:
Isolation and Boundaries - This has been a long time coming. While there have always been cities, there has been, until recently, a substantial contingent of people who lived substantially isolated from others. Radio, telephone, television, and motor vehicles have combined to making isolation practically obsolete in our nation, and there is very little that will get in the way of that obsolescence becoming a worldwide extinction. Following closely on the heels of isolation is the concept of boundaries: If you want to keep your business your own, these days, you need to make the choices necessary to isolate yourself from others, and with isolation becoming obsolete, that's not going to be possible, and therefore boundaries will become obsolete as well.
Office assistants - This goes back well before Bob Cratchit clerked for Ebenezer Scrooge, and it isn't gone yet, but I think we may see its effective demise sometime in the future. This will stem from the combination of two effects. The first is obvious and already in full force: Cost. In my first job, I shared an assistant with twelve other entry-level engineers. Within five years admins were only for supervisors and above, and within ten years even supervisors started losing assistants. Now, everyone needs to be a productive contributor in their own right. The office I work in now has cycled four people through the "receptionist" role over the last five years, each one in turn being quickly co-opted for some line or staff responsibility, one becoming a marketing associate, one becoming a contracts admin, etc. The second effect at play here is the general feeling among executives that they'd rather manage their own work, keep their own calendar, make their own reservations, etc. Self-sufficiency among executives used to be considered peculiar, then became a badge of accomplishment. I think it will eventually become standard practice.
Small Appliance Repair/Clothing repair - Maytag made a joke of this, back before it was actual, but there is a real question whether there is a viable path forward for any small appliance repair. Will such appliances become so integrated and so internally complex, and the devices themselves become so inexpensive to produce new, such that for the vast majority of maladies it would cost the repair people themselves less to "buy a new one" than to effect a repair? And this extends to mending clothes. I'm not talking about a simple fix with a few pulls of the needle and thread that someone does for themselves, but rather the service offered for a fee.
bUU -
Interesting observations. You are so right that many things are just morphing into another form. On the lawn issue, I wonder what will happen to all the entrepreneurial mostly males who have lawn care businesses. On the office admin - I work at a state university and they are now moving towards shared services in 2014. Rather than having departmental and faculty office staff, there will be only one set of admin staff that services the whole campus. Many jobs will be elimintated. As someone who has been around almost six decades, all of these changes are both exhilarating and unsettling. I am curious to see how the next generation takes it all on if I am still around to witness.
On the lawn issue, I wonder what will happen to all the entrepreneurial mostly males who have lawn care businesses.Someone has to plant and care for the succulents and other drought-resistant plants that are major features of a typical conversion from grass lawn.
I am curious to see how the next generation takes it all on if I am still around to witness.It's a pretty common foundation for controversial discussions on various forums, i.e., how society should respond to the fact that, unlike in previous generations, advances are beginning to (and will increasingly) result in substantial reductions in the need for labor in society (rather than just within a single operation), yet population continues to increase.
Miss Cellane
12-31-13, 9:15am
I think libraries are a separate case. Public libraries are publicly funded--most of the other examples here are things that consumers buy.
When libraries are closed, is that because they are no longer useful or because there is no funding for them? Does the lack of funding indicate that libraries are obsolete or that there are other public services that are more necessary, like paving roads or fire and police services? Or that the town values new lights for the high school football field over extended hours and more books for the library?
IMO, libraries in general have done a great job adapting to new technology. They've incorporated computers--both for their catalogs and other services, and for general public use. They offer ebooks, and some even have ebook readers and laptops for loan. They embraced CDs and DVDs (and VHS tapes back in the day). Libraries have revamped themselves to be information hubs, not just a place to check out a book.
If you need to do serious research, there are still a lot of academic journals and books that are simply not available on the internet, at least not without hefty subscription fees. But libraries can provide access to these sources.
Which brings me to my second point, newspapers.
Yes, you can get all sorts of news on the internet today. But anyone can post anything on the internet. The point about newspapers is that they are supposed to be checking their facts and reporting the news with as little bias as possible. Granted, it is not humanly possible to be completely unbiased. But newspapers are held to a higher standard than a person posting a blog post about something in the news. Even as newspaper staffs are shrinking, we still need news organizations that make getting the facts straight a priority. That make an attempt to present both sides of a story. Even if paper newspapers disappear, we will still need reliable news--and that frequently does not come from Twitter and Facebook and blogs and Tumblr and Instagram. It does sometimes, but good, reliable reporting will, I hope, not become a thing of the past.
I think there is a lot of romanticizing of libraries and newspapers, especially among the retired schoolteachers I know at church. (They seem to also have strong attachment to paper books, and forms of entertainment older than they are.) It seems to me that they regard these things with unwarranted excessive value because they are artifacts of when they were personally in the front-and-center chair of the community, and because they are worried about the difficulty of keep up with a world moving on. Such is simply a reflection of human nature.
Even the specific examples given above don't give me much pause: Academic journals and rare books were never available at every library in every town. Furthermore, they remain available through a number of means, electronic and physical, going into the future. The concern seems to be one of convenience and cost, but there are many things that require more in terms of time or money than many people care to or are able to afford. There is no question that there was an extended period of time, a generation ago, when such costs were less onerous, and now such things have been returned to a level of inequity of access of numerous previous generations, but again, that's true of a very large number of important things. So if there is a matter to be concerned about it is societal and ubiquitous - libraries aren't special in that regard.
Newspapers are even more clear-cut: The history of journalism is rife with examples of cases where "anyone" (rich) could publish a newspaper. Until the post-war period, there was a lot of regard for freedom of the press but not quite so much honest regard for accuracy and even-handedness of the press. Newspapers often wrote the news so as to please their advertisers or their political sponsors. The Internet as a source of news has actually had a positive impact in that regard, in that far fewer people are bamboozled by the insinuation that the news they have access to is fair and balanced, as compared to when newspapers were in their golden age and people generally believed what they read without regard to the fact that much of it was excessively biased.
Someone has to plant and care for the succulents and other drought-resistant plants that are major features of a typical conversion from grass lawn
Most "lawn-men" could give a hoot about plants - they just use mowers and blowers. Right now, there is a crew next door with their obnoxious machines going. It is a family business, father and sons, who get in and out in under 30 minutes on a 12000 sf lawn. And then they move on to the next one. When this paradigm of perfect grass and nary a leaf finally shifts, these guys will be out of business. In my neighborhood, if one wants their bushes or plants tended, there is a separate person to do that. What I wonder about though is all the highly paid professionals that live here... who pay for almost any service one can think of - even hundreds to have their Christmas decorations installed and taken down. Maids, plant technicians, nannies, personal shoppers and trainers and on and on. As long as there are people who are too busy or important to do their own stuff, they will pay others to do it for them and there will still be opportunity there for those who don't want to pursue higher education routes.
catherine
12-31-13, 10:00am
Most "lawn-men" could give a hoot about plants - they just use mowers and blowers. Right now, there is a crew next door with their obnoxious machines going. It is a family business, father and sons, who get in and out in under 30 minutes on a 12000 sf lawn. And then they move on to the next one. When this paradigm of perfect grass and nary a leaf finally shifts, these guys will be out of business. In my neighborhood, if one wants their bushes or plants tended, there is a separate person to do that. What I wonder about though is all the highly paid professionals that live here... who pay for almost any service one can think of - even hundreds to have their Christmas decorations installed and taken down. Maids, plant technicians, nannies, personal shoppers and trainers and on and on. As long as there are people who are too busy or important to do their own stuff, they will pay others to do it for them and there will still be opportunity there for those who don't want to pursue higher education routes.
Wouldn't it be great if this function could be replaced by permaculture-based small-plot farming facilitators? I need someone like that--kind of like an outdoor housekeeper who can keep tabs on the backyard ecosystem the homeowner creates.
Most "lawn-men" could give a hoot about plants"Entrepreneurial" ones should.
What I wonder about though is all the highly paid professionals that live here... who pay for almost any service one can think of - even hundreds to have their Christmas decorations installed and taken down. Maids, plant technicians, nannies, personal shoppers and trainers and on and on. As long as there are people who are too busy or important to do their own stuff, they will pay others to do it for them and there will still be opportunity there for those who don't want to pursue higher education routes.And as long as the money is there. There was a time when 90% of everyone did the physical work necessary to provide for themselves or by proxy the basic essentials of life. That number of steadily decreased, as a reflection of increasing civilization and the consequent increase in leisure and luxury afforded by making the provision of the basic essentials require less and less effort per capita. Productivity has a negative impact on the need for labor. In the past, this has often been subsumed by increased demand for labor from other directions. It doesn't anymore, and won't in the future, because there simply isn't profit in it. The mythic principle in play these days, for good or ill, is being someone who manages to do their business with fewer people and less cost, not being someone who creates the need for more work done by more people.
I cannot imagine newspapers disappearing. I love walking out in the morning and picking it up at the end of the driveway and taking a glimpse at the last stars of evening. We try, sometimes, to read the paper on the laptop when the newspaper is late, and it's just irritating. We give up quickly and grab whatever books we happen to be reading. I feel the same way about magazines, though we only subscribe to the Atlantic and Bicycle Quarterly. (We also get Bicycling as part of being members of the League of American Bicyclists, but it isn't something I would normally opt for). I don't think I would ever read a magazine on a digital device. Flipping through is the entire point. At the library, I read the Sun, Utne, Tricycle, the Paris Review, Cooks Quarterly, and a few others. Why would magazines go away?
I know that manual typewriters are in a bit of a resurgence, and I've never stopped using mine, but I see them as being - I don't know the word I'm looking for - less of something every day, sort of like rotary phones. It's getting harder to find rotary phones that work well. I love rotary phones, but we had a gap between the last one dying and our current one. The last one we grabbed at a thrift store, which used to be full of rotary phones. We had a push-button phone for a while, and it just wasn't the same. I kept looking at the thrift stores for another rotary, and none showed up. I bought one off eBay, and it only worked for a while. Our current orange rotary phone was a Christmas gift from my sister. Still, we had to buy a pulse to tone converter to get it to work properly with our DSL line. Things like rotary phones have gone from a cheap thrift-store choice to a somewhat expensive proposition. I think manual typewriters may soon become like that, though it's still my preferred means for beginning essays and writing letters to my family.
Edited to Add: My teenage daughter had a friend sleep over, and she had to teach her friend how to dial the phone. It was one of the funniest things I've seen. Have I been hanging on to rotary phones longer than I realize? I consistently had nothing but a rotary phone until about ten years ago, and I assumed it would be easier to replace than it was when it died. I imagine at least a respectable percentage of people would still have one around. It's so much more satisfying to dial a phone. I think there are some teenagers out there who have never dialed a phone. On the other hand, the one thing my daughter wanted for Christmas was a record player for her room. She loves to listen to Barbara Streisand albums. I guess rotary phones are out with teenagers, but vinyl is in. I like that I can buy vinyl albums on Amazon and also get the digital version for free, though I don't buy many albums these days - it's not in the budget.
Fountain pens, however, are better and cheaper than ever. The Pilot metropolitan is great and goes for only $12 on Amazon. I remember when a $12 fountain pen was nothing but c**p.
catherine
12-31-13, 12:18pm
Fountain pens, however, are better and cheaper than ever. The Pilot metropolitan is great and goes for only $12 on Amazon. I remember when a $12 fountain pen was nothing but c**p.
When I was in Catholic school we HAD to write with fountain pens, or the "high tech" version of fountain pens: cartridge pens. I have to say, those pens make your handwriting look better somehow.
But that makes me think that handwriting will also go away. I hear they've stopped teaching penmanship in many schools. People supposedly won't need to know script.. I don't quite understand that because script is MUCH faster than printing. But remember during the Trayvon Martin trial, Rachel Jeanteel couldn't read script? Wow.. in the future, you'll have to have a PhD to decipher common documents of the 20th century I guess.
gimmethesimplelife
12-31-13, 1:02pm
Waiters and waitresses in restaurants. Seriously. Applebee's is soon to release tablets at all tables at all their restaurants with the (unstated) goal being cutting down on labor costs. If this benefits the bottom line without too much bad PR, watch other restaurants rapidly follow suit. I would not be surprised if in five to ten years the restaurant as we know it today experienced some pretty radical changes. More and more apps are being developed to squeeze out every possible penny of profit all along the way and more and more apps are allowing for spying on and monitoring of restaurant employees - something that said employees had been immune from much longer than office workers. I don't know what to think of this as a burnt out (hopefully former) restaurant server. Part of me is glad to see the industry change as it's so insane in so many ways, and part of me worries about the millions of servers - what do they do now? Rob
I've heard that some schools have stopped teaching cursive, but our public school in Santa Fe made a big deal out of its being important for some certain stage of intellectual development. Even if it is not taught in schools, wouldn't it be passed down in families? Most of my notes to my kids, grocery lists, to do lists, etc. are in cursive. I would think cursive handwriting is too engrained in our every day lives to disappear.
Miss Cellane
12-31-13, 1:50pm
Waiters and waitresses in restaurants. Seriously. Applebee's is soon to release tablets at all tables at all their restaurants with the (unstated) goal being cutting down on labor costs. If this benefits the bottom line without too much bad PR, watch other restaurants rapidly follow suit. I would not be surprised if in five to ten years the restaurant as we know it today experienced some pretty radical changes. More and more apps are being developed to squeeze out every possible penny of profit all along the way and more and more apps are allowing for spying on and monitoring of restaurant employees - something that said employees had been immune from much longer than office workers. I don't know what to think of this as a burnt out (hopefully former) restaurant server. Part of me is glad to see the industry change as it's so insane in so many ways, and part of me worries about the millions of servers - what do they do now? Rob
I hadn't heard about this, so I went and looked it up. It appears that you will still order through a waitperson, and people will still bring the food to the table. The main thing is that you can pay on the tablet--no waiting for the waitstaff to bring the check, which I think can be an improvement. Unless people use that as an out for not tipping the waitstaff--since the staff will not see if there is a tip or not when paying by credit card.
SteveinMN
12-31-13, 1:52pm
Waiters and waitresses in restaurants.
But until robots get better or every table is seated around a racetrack, someone still will have to deliver those meals, no? I do see tablets used as gimmicks in restaurants, but I'm not sure they'll become more than that. I remember (decades ago) a restaurant with telephones at each table. You leafed through the menu, which was kind of like a jukebox (there's something that's almost gone obsolete!) and, when you were ready, you picked up the phone and someone elsewhere in the restaurant took your order. Restaurants didn't follow that lead and I suspect most won't follow the tablet lead, either, especially since tablets are far more expensive than telephone handsets.
Along those lines, however, I do see more and more self-service checkouts in big-box stores. Cashiers and bagboys/girls seem to be going the way of bank tellers and gas-station attendants. They're harder to find as we've gotten more used to doing those tasks by ourselves. As Paul pointed out, though, that's maybe more of a change of role than outright obsolescence. At least at this point.
I like the idea of putting my orders into the kitchen myself at a restaurant. I hope that comes to this area soon.
Well, here's what the fast food workers of the future will look like, with the new push for "living wages" of $15/hour for their efforts:
http://www.blogcdn.com/jobs.aol.com/articles/media/2013/07/robots-fast-food-435df071613.jpg
gimmethesimplelife
12-31-13, 2:27pm
About the tablets - there will still be a need for waitpeople at first but once people get used to this concept and serving is reduced to bringing food and drinks to a table with minimal customer interaction - there really won't need to be as many waitpeople in all but the most upscale of places where people will still expect humans to interact with them and the prices will reflect the cost of more human staff. We're not talking of robots here - we're talking of simple computer tablets at tables on which customers can order, pay their check, and special order their meals, completely bypassing a huge part of the traditional server's job. With the server not so needed, of course there will be fewer on the floor, it only stands to reason. Restaurants will not be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and will market it as innovation and a quick in quick out experience. I'm glad it looks like my days in the biz are over but like I said, I worry for all those still in the trenches. Rob
Gardenarian
12-31-13, 4:21pm
I paid for college waiting tables - it is one of the few unskilled jobs where one can make a decent wage. I detested the work, but it got me through.
California has stopped teaching cursive entirely - a great loss, I think. At Waldorf/Steiner schools students must use fountain pens to learn writing. If you can write neatly with a fountain pen, a ballpoint is easy. I love fountain and dip pens.
Yes, more and more self check out. They seem to need one employee for every two or three self-check stations.
I still use checks to pay my bills - I think I am kind of a dinosaur in this respect (though some companies, like our trash service, only take checks.) When will the checkbook become obsolete?
I never understood why any time was wasted on cursive in school. That time would have been far better spent imho on enhancing language skills, Latin roots, for example (something I recall was very helpful when I went through my schooling, but was gone from the curriculum by the time my younger brother went through his schooling), or analytic skills, such as patterns of problem solving. There are a lot of things I believe schools did because they were traditional and were things that curriculum developers remembered fondly rather than because those things best contributed to the worth of the education itself.
I still use checks to pay bills, and my wife uses the checkbook at grocery stores, etc. I guess once you hit your forties, old habits die hard. Occasionally, when I get paranoid about the security of debit cards, I'll go through a period of using the checkbook at stores, but they run it through a scanner anyway. What's the difference? I guess cash is the only non-technological option.
Debit cards indeed present basically the same risk as checks. Credit card use, by comparison, is better protected.
ToomuchStuff
12-31-13, 5:08pm
Cursive has stopped being taught in some schools here. Quite honestly I am not sure why, as I have said, when I was a kid, "sign your name" meant cursive and I know an illiterate person (neighbor of my grandmothers, whose kid was teaching him how to read and write), signed with an x. (are we going back to that? Contract enforcement will be fun)
I'd be interested in seeing how people think the post office is going away or going to evolve. Third class mail still arrives (although they don't like my idea of a lidded trash can mailbox/receptacle for it) and as far as I know the only way to stop that, is to remove the mailbox. I still do billing and all by mail, and still know both older people who do, and non computer literate people who do. (having a computer, doesn't make one literate in it) The employee's of it, that I have talked to, say it was profitable/self sufficient, until the government required prefunding of the retirement, which they say are being used by the government with a promise to pay it back (like social security). I asked about the profitable part when they said it, since it is supposed to be a non profit organization.
Since the post office is in the constitution and has legal uses (registered letters, etc), I am unsure how people think it will go away. I read about Canada's post office, going to central mail/po box delivery system and know some of our carriers in the area think that is the way to go. I haven't heard any answers as to funding the box locations (eminent domain grabs, building the structures in existing area's or historical area's, etc). I expect that would be a burden on the system, even before you get to rural area issues.
Our libraries are more digital. There are always fights about how a non profit, tax funded group, is supposed to pay for profit companies, for use of content (digital licenses, etc).
Several lawn care business's here, have also done snow removal. Some closed due to droughts and little snow years, others evolved into landscaping companies after the droughts, to stay in business. Yet a few more, went to larger equipment and started doing field work, from undeveloped area's that the cities built up around (and codes enforcement started pushing for lawns instead of tax use farms) to area's in the counties, further out.
Paper and plastic bags are stills used here (the costs of them are built into the pricing of all the goods in the stores). There are a few places (my understanding) that charge for them, but tend to be in the higher priced area's, aimed at yuppies, who pay for them twice (in the cost then separately). Most of the cloth bags are obtained the way I obtained mine, free giveaways by companies using them as advertising.
As you can see, I see less going away, but rather evolving as companies convince people to move away from things and towards billable events (from your internet service to get your bills to things that one expected for free, like air for tires)
One old timer at the garage I use, once said to me, when he was a kid, gas and ethanol were unleaded, and then they charged more to add the lead when it came about. Then when "unleaded" gas came in, in the 70's, they started charging more to skip that step.
ToomuchStuff
12-31-13, 5:11pm
I'll go through a period of using the checkbook at stores, but they run it through a scanner anyway. What's the difference? I guess cash is the only non-technological option.
Fee structure and their access to and storing of your pin. If I can quit hitting multiple keys here, I am still a cash user for most everything locally.
signed with an x. (are we going back to that? Contract enforcement will be fun)No more so than contract enforcement is with people signing with scribbles. There's a reason why such things are notarized. Regardless, people will sign their name using their handwriting, whether it be cursive or not, not with an 'x'. Not writing in cursive is not related to being unable to write as you seem to be implying.
I'd be interested in seeing how people think the post office is going away or going to evolve. Third class mail still arrives (although they don't like my idea of a lidded trash can mailbox/receptacle for it) and as far as I know the only way to stop that, is to remove the mailbox.Good point, but we have to recognize that a junk mail distribution service is going to evolve to different, lesser, delivery standards.
I read about Canada's post office, going to central mail/po box delivery system and know some of our carriers in the area think that is the way to go. That actually sounds more reasonable than pulling back to just third-class mail. I remember when we moved in where we are now (we're the original owners) that there was an issue with the post office rejecting the developer's rather standard approach to mailboxes by the curb of every home. He was required to erect a block of 12 boxes for our whole neighborhood. I do think that it is quite different putting such changes in place for new construction versus forcing established homes to change to neighborhood blocks of boxes, but if the money isn't there then that is what they should do, and not placate complainers. Making recipients do part of the work seems far superior to me than cutting service entirely, given special allowances for the handicapped.
40 and 60 watt incandescent bulb production ends this year. The only remaining incandescent bulbs in production will be the small bulbs used in appliances. Pretty much the end of and era.
I wonder how much longer desktop computers will be used in the home. I use mine for graphics work, but would probably not have one otherwise. I don't see them going away in many works places. For that matter I even wonder how much longer laptops will be used at home.
I can imagine a larger turnover than normal for politicians in the 2014 elections, less gabble about gun control, and fewer laws in many states regarding marijuana use.
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