Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Which Businesses Will Go Away In the Next 10 Years? (nbcnews.com)
AmiMoJo writes: Ten years ago NBC published a list of business types that it predicted would disappear in the following decade. Ten years later and we can see how good their fortune telling was. What businesses do you think will go away by 2027? Who is destined to become the next buggy whip manufacturer, whose demand dried up due to changing technology and a changing world?
For reference, NBC's list was: Record stores; Camera film manufacturing; Crop dusters; Gay bars; Newspapers; Pay phones; Used bookstores; Piggy banks; Telemarketing; Coin-operated arcades.
For reference, NBC's list was: Record stores; Camera film manufacturing; Crop dusters; Gay bars; Newspapers; Pay phones; Used bookstores; Piggy banks; Telemarketing; Coin-operated arcades.
If you're kidding then you're an idiot. Slashdot will most certainly be dead in 10 years. I'd be surprised if it lasts longer than 3 years.
I think it'd be far more likely for Mozilla to disappear long before Google does.
Firefox is the only product of Mozilla's that really sees much use, and even it's losing market share. The latest browser stats show it has only about 5% of the market now, and essentially no presence in the mobile market (0.04%!).
If I'm not mistaken, their search deal with Yahoo expires in 2019. Given Yahoo's state, and Firefox's almost non-existent market share, I wouldn't be optimistic about it being extended.
After that, the rest of Mozilla's products could, in my opinion, be seen as failures, including Persona, Firefox OS, Rust, Servo, Thunderbird, and Pocket. I can't really see how any of them help bring in revenue.
What's their greatest accomplishment as of late? Obfuscating their logo into "moz://a"!
I think the future looks very bleak for Mozilla.
Now, admittedly, they may not be used for the same thing as they originally were, but the market is increasing.
I'd tend to say the following:
1. Repair stations (not tire shops) - electric cars and trucks need about half as much maintenance and a lot of it is instrument driven. A good way to diversify is add bike repairs to one of your bays, or a chai/bubble tea store.
2. Single gender bathrooms in retail. Most places can't really afford having separate facilities, so you'll probably see most places just have a room with both fixtures. Exception: bars, restaurants.
3. Fear based local TV news. Unhappy, scared people don't buy stuff. And TV is mostly dead.
4. Food delivery and prepackaged meal delivery services. Those that survive will transition to restaurant delivery. Uber will vaporize as drones replace on demand delivery.
5. Furniture places. 2025-2035 will see most people getting smaller places and getting rid of large furniture. Exception: couches, chairs. Best to diversify into Tiny Home style furniture that incorporates storage into the furniture (dual use furniture).
6. Expensive spicy food places. As Americans age into retirees they will start wanting to go to diner type places. This won't kill ethnic foods, but a lot of current restaurants will suddenly lose foot traffic, as retirees don't eat out that much. Nobody will miss them.
7. Parking garages. The combination of on demand self driving vehicles, more retirees, more cyclists, more pedestrians, and quiet electric transit will kill off a lot of parking garages and the attached malls. Nobody will miss them, except us skateboarders.
8. Single family home lawn supplies. Lawns will be replaced by gardens and more people will live in multi-family towers next to green parks. But plants will be in high demand for the apartments and decks. Tiny greenhouses too.
9. Cell phone stores. The 2025-2035 period will see ubiquitous self-powered wifi devices (like ST comms badges) that run off incidental radiation, and attach to clothes (either as sleeves, belts, broaches, or necklaces. This will save jewelry stores, of course.
10. Wallets. See 9 above. The new devices will mostly replace wallets and purses. People will wear nifty gem sacks at their belts, in which they store their coins (see how Canada does dollars, or Euro coins).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sadly, when was the last time the "slashdot effect" was actually observed to cause a virtual DOS attack due to a link from slashdot as opposed to some other site?
If the facebook has its way with virtual reality then the worlds oldest business will vanish. Cross physical feed back with AI then things get ... creepy.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Slashdot much like your own body continually dies. You know your are dying as we post, countless dead cells haunting your carcass to be replaced by new cells, you have continually died and reborn since you were first conceived. So as for slashdot, people will move on, newcomers will join, some will hung around till the day they die. The open exchange of ideas around the geek/nerd news of that day. Tearing it apart, putting it back together in new ways just because and injecting new ideas back into the human gestalt in affect programming the AI that is the internet. Slashdot certainly continually changes over time.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'm sure this is meant half jokingly, but American football as a whole is in trouble. Schools are starting to shut down their programs due to lack of interest. Parents, worried about their kids' brain health, are pushing them to play other sports. In time, the talent dropoff will be dramatic enough to significantly affect big college and pro football.
The decline for the NFL has accelerated much faster than expected. The league's necessary adjustments for safety has made the game less interesting to watch and the recent anthem "controversies" are not helping. Attendance and viewership is down. The decline has already started and doesn't look like it will abate soon. Think that football is too big to fail? 80 years ago Boxing was the #1 sport in America. Look at the state of boxing today.
I hope more for Facebook to go away.
Microsoft has had its peak, but will probably not go away.
Oracle is at larger risk. it's big and bulky with an unclear business strategy.
Several cloud service providers are at risk.
Some ISPs with bad customer treatments.
Analog land lines are already dying in bulk.
Trumps real estate business is probably at risk.
Apple - past Jobs the vision is gone.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Don't over-estimate how big those revivals are though. Vinyl only looks like it is selling in significant volume because no-one buys music on physical media any more. CD sales are way, way down in the last decade, as are music sales in general thanks to streaming.
I was surprised to see camera shops trying to make a comeback. There is a chain in the UK called Jessops, which had a pretty terrible reputation for being an over-priced hard-sell rip-off even back in the day. They all closed and a low grade celebrity businessman bought the name, and is trying to bring them back. But everything in there is still twice the price you can get it on online, and with online sales you have more consumer rights.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC