What Businesses may Vanish in the next Decade (Business Tips)

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What Businesses may Vanish in the next Decade (Business Tips)
(2007/09/17)

What Businesses may Vanish in the next Decade
By Brad Trupp (c) 2007

There have been a number of articles lately on what businesses may vanish in the next decade.

Some of the commonly suggested one are:

Record stores
Camera film manufacturing
Crop dusters
Newspapers
Pay phones
Used bookstores
Piggy banks
Coin-operated arcades

Most of these are due to changes or perceived changes in technology but some are not so obvious.

Piggy Banks

Take, for example, Piggy banks.

We are moving to a cashless society where most anything can be paid for with your credit card, debit card, instant funds transfer, et el. There is exciting technology becoming popular where you use your phone to send and receive payments.

Another reason is the cost of making and distributing coins. It now costs more to make a 1 cent penny than the penny is worth and this may become true for larger coins too. People have stolen copper and aluminum wires to resell for the copper and aluminum content and how long before the same becomes true for the metal in some of our coins?

Newspapers

Newspapers have been on the death watch for a long time now. There cannot compete with the 24 x 7 constantly updating news on the internet but for now newspapers are still the best option out there for local news and advertisements. With the move to large screen monitors with easier to read layouts and the localization of news and ads, newspapers will likely end up electronic only.

Used Book Stores

Used book stores may take a little longer to die. Libraries are good but I like to pick up a dozen books for a dollar any time I go on holidays since at that price you do not feel bad about leaving the books behind as you finish reading them. Technology still needs to create a really good display format that mimics the look and feel and portability of a book and content needs to become free or nearly free.

There are some good advances already in that direction like the Sony Reader so it will happen. Wander by a e-book kiosk, load up a dozen books and away you go.

What the Future Holds?

What do you think are some other businesses that will vanish and why?

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