7 Things That Are Almost Gone: Does It Matter?
Today, I am looking at a few things that used to be part of our everyday life but are getting harder to find. Change has relegated them unnecessary for many of us. How about you?
*Yellow Pages. Virtually all phone companies have taken steps to eliminate the printed books that once arrived with a thump on your front porch once a year. What reminded me they still exist was the recent arrival at my house of a small version with maybe a hundred pages of display ads and listings. It went right into recycling. The Internet makes these books out of date almost as soon as they are printed. White pages for residential and business listings aren't even available anymore unless you request one.
*Movie Rental Stores. The stand alone video rental store is not long for this world. There are no national chains left, unless you count the Redbox kiosks. Larger cities have a handful of independent video outlets that survive by featuring hard-to-find foreign and art films, some still on VHS. But, names like Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, and Blockbuster are gone.
Netflix is willing to send you a DVD through the mail, though the company has made it clear the future of that option is bleak. Amazon Prime, Google Play, You Tube, and Netflix will be happy to stream a movie directly to your home, making the Redbox kiosk experience seem almost quaint.
*The Post Office. Any "normal" business as out of step with the world around it as the postal service would have disappeared years ago. But, the promise of universal mail service keeps this dinosaur alive. Even common sense suggestions like eliminating Saturday delivery are met with howls of protest, all while demanding the service stop losing billions a year.
What does the future hold? Eventually, five day delivery will happen. Mail directly to your home instead of a neighborhood box is probably doomed at some point. Amazon, Fedex, UPS, and private services have taken much of the postal services package delivery business away. E-mail and texting make snail mail much too slow. Most of your mail now is just magazines and junk mail. That isn't enough to pay the bills, even with postal stamp and shipping prices increasing on a regular basis.
*Paper Checks. Britain is planning on doing away with the paper check by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process them. As Internet security and pay-by-phone systems improve, folks will agree that electronic transfers are more secure than paper checks.
America will not see the check disappear as quickly as those in England, but it is coming. Check usage continues to shrink. It now accounts for less than 50% of consumers' recurring bill payments, down from 72% in 2001. Social Security stopped mailing checks in 2013. A recent survey shows 52% of those in their 20s and 30s have never written a check.
*Handwritten letters. Another causality of the change from written mail to electronic communication is the handwritten letter. How many of us were raised to mail a Thank You note for a present within a few days of receiving the gift? How many wrote letters home from summer camp or back and forth when one half of a couple was in the military? Handwritten letters have been important in our lives, but are virtually gone now. Children aren't being taught cursive writing in many schools, so they can't write a letter or couldn't read one they receive.
*The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That will go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. It is out-of-date when printed and much too expensive to distribute. As for reading the paper on line, get ready to pay for it as a matter of course. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers have caused many newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance to determine a pay-for-reading business model that will work.
Interestingly, the demise of some newspapers seems to have been delayed by the recent political upheavals. Attacks against the truthfulness of the media has resulted in some significant subscription increases for a few of the better known ones, like the NY Times and Washington Post. But, that is likely a short term phenomenon.
*The LandLine Telephone. Part of the reason the telephone white pages have almost ceased to exist is the drop in wired telephones. Considering how many folks have cell phones, it is somewhat surprising that 62% of American homes still have a landline phone. About a dozen years ago that number was 97%.
In some cases the hard-wired phone line is required because the household is still dependent on dial-up Internet. Up to 9 million of us don't have high-speed connections. Often home security systems require a dedicated phone line. If the electrical system fails during a storm, so do cell phones, but the landline phone operates. And, there are plenty of places in the country where cell signals are unreliable or non-existent.
Adapting to change and using it to our benefit are important steps for us on our journey to a satisfying retirement. Which of the things on my list will you miss the most? Which ones are already gone from your life? What didn't I list that you believe is not long for this world?
America will not see the check disappear as quickly as those in England, but it is coming. Check usage continues to shrink. It now accounts for less than 50% of consumers' recurring bill payments, down from 72% in 2001. Social Security stopped mailing checks in 2013. A recent survey shows 52% of those in their 20s and 30s have never written a check.
*Handwritten letters. Another causality of the change from written mail to electronic communication is the handwritten letter. How many of us were raised to mail a Thank You note for a present within a few days of receiving the gift? How many wrote letters home from summer camp or back and forth when one half of a couple was in the military? Handwritten letters have been important in our lives, but are virtually gone now. Children aren't being taught cursive writing in many schools, so they can't write a letter or couldn't read one they receive.
*The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That will go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. It is out-of-date when printed and much too expensive to distribute. As for reading the paper on line, get ready to pay for it as a matter of course. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers have caused many newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance to determine a pay-for-reading business model that will work.
Interestingly, the demise of some newspapers seems to have been delayed by the recent political upheavals. Attacks against the truthfulness of the media has resulted in some significant subscription increases for a few of the better known ones, like the NY Times and Washington Post. But, that is likely a short term phenomenon.
*The LandLine Telephone. Part of the reason the telephone white pages have almost ceased to exist is the drop in wired telephones. Considering how many folks have cell phones, it is somewhat surprising that 62% of American homes still have a landline phone. About a dozen years ago that number was 97%.
In some cases the hard-wired phone line is required because the household is still dependent on dial-up Internet. Up to 9 million of us don't have high-speed connections. Often home security systems require a dedicated phone line. If the electrical system fails during a storm, so do cell phones, but the landline phone operates. And, there are plenty of places in the country where cell signals are unreliable or non-existent.
Adapting to change and using it to our benefit are important steps for us on our journey to a satisfying retirement. Which of the things on my list will you miss the most? Which ones are already gone from your life? What didn't I list that you believe is not long for this world?
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