This year I received an email listing “25 Things About To Become Extinct In America.”
Yellow Pages - This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. The falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
Classified Ads – May be replaced by free on-line listings like Craigslist.org.
Movie Rental Stores - Netflix is looking up at the moment, but Blockbuster keeps closing stores by the hundreds. The Hollywood Video brand closed up shop earlier this year.
Phone Land Lines - At the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only.
Answering Machines, which are directly tied to the decline of landlines, are fading away.
Cameras That Use Film – Nikon was once the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006 it announced that it would stop making film cameras, which made up only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% from digital cameras and equipment.
Hand-Written Letters - The 2006 estimate was that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings (nearly half the world’s population) owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage.
As far back as 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So, very few elegant, polite hand-written letters any more.
The use of Personal Checks is declining. Checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments. The new methods include automatic bank draft, debit cards and online payments.
Drive-in Theaters during the peak in 1958 numbered more than 4,000, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. None has been built since 2005.
Honey Bees are disappearing. They are so necessary to the survival of our food supply. Colony Collapse Disorder has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers.
News Magazines and TV News - In 1984 the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. By 2008 they had half that.