r/AskReddit • u/Diffusional • Aug 26 '12
What is something that is absolutely, without question, going to happen within the next ten years (2012 - 2022)?
I wanted to know if any of you could tell me any actual events that will, without question, happen within the next ten years. Obviously no one here is a fortune teller, but some things in the world are inevitable, predictable through calculation, and without a doubt will happen, and I wanted to know if any of you know some of those things that will.
Please refrain from the "i'll masturbate xD! LOL" and "ill be forever alone and never have sex! :P" kinds of posts. Although they may very well be true, and I'm not necessarily asking for world-changing examples, I'd appreciate it if you didn't submit such posts. Thanks a bunch.
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u/itsApril14thlol Aug 26 '12
completion of the new world trade center
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
Very true. I hadn't really thought about that, even though there has been a lot of talk about it recently on reddit. I wonder what other important and/or potentially iconic buildings will be built in the next ten years.
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u/Harlestone Aug 27 '12
world's tallest building in China (10m higher than the Burj Khalifa) in 3 months, based on pre-fab concrete.
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u/NickVenture Aug 27 '12
It feels like that thing has been in construction forever.
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u/jesse_h Aug 27 '12
Like when Mariah Carey was pregnant.
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u/Toreyun Aug 27 '12
Mariah Carey and Jessica Simpson single-handedly saved the pre-birth industry.
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u/microfortnight Aug 27 '12
Did you know that Mariah Carey is Snooki's mom? very few people know this tidbit.
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u/Krases Aug 27 '12
A lot of BS politics consisting mostly of politicians fighting over the 'right' to claim they built it threw a lot of wrenches into the plan.
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u/flinter Aug 26 '12
but its not guaranteed to happen something might happen which prevents it from being complete
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u/Doodeyfoodle Aug 27 '12
WHAT DO YOU KNOW!?!?
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u/MadDetective Aug 27 '12
That logic works for everything in this thread, the fact is we're assuming nothing drastic happens.
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u/NotABeckSong Aug 26 '12
We're all going to say "Oh yeah! I remember Reddit. No, I wasn't a Redditor."
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
I can imagine that within ten years that reddit will fall out of style and the community will begin to die off and move to another website very similar to reddit, only better and more modern. At some point all of the users complaining about how much they hate reddit will find a new place to collect and do what they want to do, and eventually more people will go to that place until it turns into another reddit situation, and the cycle will continue. There's no way to prove that this will absolutely happen within the next decade, but it's highly likely.
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u/soulsatzero Aug 27 '12
Back in the good old days we had the Usenets, you and your fancy Redditamajig.
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u/NotABeckSong Aug 26 '12
True. It's not an absolute. I felt a touch dickish going for the joke over a post that contributes, so I apologize. One certainty is... There are no certaintees.
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
It's alright, we're all susceptible to having a bit of fun here and there (hardy har har), but I absolutely agree with you, as does everybody else, that certainties, though usually accurate, or not actually certainties at all. Just ask every office employee who was late to work after he promised his boss he would be on time about that.
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Aug 27 '12
I want you to know I have bookmarked this comment, and am going to get some serious internet points in approximately 10 years.
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Aug 26 '12
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A private company (my money is on SpaceX but we will see) transports a human to or from the ISS
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DVDs will stop being sold
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The US still won't have a high speed rail system
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Electric car sales will have surpassed 500,000 and most states will have adopted solar charging stations along highways.
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90% of the population will own a smartphone.
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A $99 smartphone will have more computing power than a gaming desktop of today's standard
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
There are two things on that list that don't sound entirely plausible in a decade. The DVD sales will absolutely still exist, and Blu-Ray/HD digital downloading is still underdeveloped and expensive to be a worldly-used by people who could easily save $10 - $20 and pick up a DVD. I think they'll lose popularity greatly, no doubt, but they will still be sold since there will still be a market for it.
A $99 smartphone will not have the same, and especially not more computing power than a gaming desktop of today's standard in a decade. It's not so much that we can't do it, it's that the price will not be $99 by any means.
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Aug 27 '12
I looked up popular computers from 2002. The specs I got were varied from
800 MHz – 1.2 Ghz processors
256mb - 512mb ram
30-50Gb hard drive
The iPhone 4 currently costs $99 it's specs are
1GHz Processor
512mb of ram
8Gb flash storage.
So really the way technology is moving, the only improvement in the next ten years is more storage space. Which is quite possible.
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u/CalcProgrammer1 Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
You can't do what you just did there. It's an illegal move, it's illogical, and you're wrong. Sorry, but it's true.
Gaming machine from 2002:
1-2GHz single-core x86 CPU (AMD Athlon XP or Pentium 4) - All of these are pipelined, have FPU, multimedia extensions, other extensions like SSE/SSE2, 3DNow, etc.
512-1GB RAM (256 is a bit low for a 2002 gaming machine, maybe a business machine or cheapo Internet desktop, but not a gaming machine) - This would be DDR1 RAM on a single-channel memory controller
40-120GB hard drive (again, 30-50 is pretty low for gaming machine) - IDE parallel connection, 10MB/s+ transfer rate, DMA transfers to RAM
nVidia 4x or ATi Radeon 8/9000 series PCI or AGP graphics with 32/64/128MB on-board dedicated VRAM
Today's $99 smartphone: ~1GHz single-core ARM7 Cortex SoC with FPU and NEON extensions 256-512MB DDR2/3 mobile package-on-package RAM 8/16GB Flash memory (serial SDIO interface, 5-10MB/s transfer, probably does not have DMA) Adreno 200/PowerVR SGX 530/Mali something-or-other integrated GPU using 32/64MB shared system RAM supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 instruction set
Now, comparing a 1GHz ARM7 to a 2GHz x86 is nowhere even close to even. For one, x86 is many times faster than ARM clock-per-clock due to its complexity, parallel structure, and more powerful instruction set. ARM is a RISC computer (reduced instruction set computer) and x86 is CISC (complex instruction set computer). That means that even a 2GHz ARM would likely not match the performance of a 1.5GHz x86.
The same can be said for graphics, as the discrete GPU's of 2002 supported at least DirectX 8 (maybe 9) and OpenGL 2.x, while OpenGL ES is a subset of OpenGL 2.x. The mobile GPU's do not have discrete dedicated VRAM as the computer GPU's did.
Finally, Flash memory used in phones is still quite slow compared to IDE and SATA hard drives, often clocking less than 10MB/s write (which is Class 10 for SDHC). PC's use Direct Memory Access to transfer large blocks from HDD to RAM without the direct intervention of the CPU, allowing disk transfers to not bog down the PC. ARM does not have this, and thus your phone gets slow when it is doing a lot of read/write access to the storage device.
My PC from late 2002/early 2003 (cost around $750 with CRT flatscreen monitor) - AMD Athlon XP 2.00GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB IDE drive, nVidia GeForce MX420/64MB AGP - HP Pavilion 734n
tl;dr: Don't use marketing numbers to compare computers. It is more wrong than you can imagine. You MUST take into account architectural differences, of which there are TONS going from PC to smartphone.
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Aug 27 '12
I didn't think computer technology was constantly advancing at a steady rate. Won't it eventually plateau?
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u/leesoutherst Aug 27 '12
I'm not sure about the solar cars either. Hydrogen fuel cells have much more potential. It all depends on whether someone can create a model that can compete pricewise and efficiencywise as gasoline and the internal combustion engine. It's a very tall order.
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u/prmaster23 Aug 27 '12
A $99 smartphone will not have the same, and especially not more computing power than a gaming desktop of today's standard in a decade. It's not so much that we can't do it, it's that the price will not be $99 by any means.
I am pretty sure he is talking about $99 with a contract. A lot of current smart phone users don't really know what a smart phone cost if they buy it out of contract.
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u/TheTuqueDuke Aug 27 '12
I heard that tech power/capacity/ability pretty much doubles every 4 (?) years. Maybe it was 2. So it is possible. But then again I could be totally wrong and just repeating something I heard on Terminator or a similar movie...
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Aug 27 '12
The DVD's will be sidelined out of existance. Look at the current trends of mobile PCs (Ultrabooks and MacAirs). Also, all the OS are shifting to USB installation or digital distribution (I predict Windows 9 will be entirely shifted on USBs). Look at games, digital publishers have the highest volume of sales (from Steam to console platforms). Look at internet speed (Google Fiber is one example, but broadband is the main way of connecting to the internet) - you can download anything everywhere, on laptops and phones. You don't need external media.
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar Aug 27 '12
Blu-Ray/HD digital downloading is still underdeveloped and expensive to be a worldly-used by people who could easily save $10 - $20 and pick up a DVD
You can buy older Blu-Rays of popular movies at Target for $5-$10. I got 6 for under $35.
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Aug 27 '12
The U.S. isn't laid out in a way that is conducive to high speed passenger rail. Our cities are too spread out.
Also, we have one of the best freight rail systems in the world.
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u/Maxrdt Aug 27 '12
Our cities are too spread out.
Isn't that the reason we need high speed rail? Due to it's higher top speed but lower acceleration trains are better suited to longer distances, they can run at their more efficient gears for longer periods of time.
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u/Abraxas65 Aug 27 '12
No offense but this
The U.S. isn't laid out in a way that is conducive to high speed passenger rail.
Is fucking bullshit. There are most definitely places in the US where high speed rail can be implemented successfully. And the fact that we have a great freight system is irrelevant to our need for a high speed rail system.
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u/gingerkid1234 Aug 27 '12
The US still won't have a high speed rail system
To nitpick, we do have a high-speed rail system, just a very small one that barely meets the criteria for high speed rail.
Electric car sales will have surpassed 500,000 and most states will have adopted solar charging stations along highways.
Do you mean purely electric cars, or cars with electric motors (a la Chevy Volt)? The practical problems with purely electric cars (range, charging time) are still immense and could easily not be solved in the next ten years--see the Top Gear electric car episode for the significant challenges that need to be overcome before we can have large-scale use of electric cars. The power grid would likely also need some work.
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Aug 27 '12
word of advice: do not use Top Gear as a source. As they have been know to have no idea what they're talking about
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Aug 27 '12
I dunno about the smartphone thing. Smartphones still aren't as rugged as those Nokia dumbphones that are so popular all throughout poorer areas. I'd wager we'd see an Android-powered phone but it would be very barebones and probably have a non-touchscreen display.
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u/CalcProgrammer1 Aug 27 '12
I think smartphones will easily become cost-competitive, but people who don't need the features will refuse them.
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u/brokendimension Aug 27 '12
I definitely agree with your second point. Everything will be digitally stored, and cloud storage will become more popular than ever.
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u/joaomilare Aug 26 '12
water supplies will run short.
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
This is very true, and is already happening in the Southern United States near the Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama area. They've had to pass laws that ration and split water currents and sales between them (and some other affected states near them) and this has caused a lot of disputes. It's easy to predict that this will also occur in other locations of the world in the next decade, ultimately leading to the development of better ocean water filtration systems that are accessible to multiple countries around the world in a large scale, giving us clean and drinkable water while also harvesting hydroelectricity.
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u/chucky2000 Aug 27 '12
I've read that filtering out salt out of ocean water is extremely expensive so if we want to develop a cheaper way of doing it we better start investing and researching now before it's too late.
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u/Bipolarruledout Aug 27 '12
It would take a lot of energy. Not a problem except energy prices are already skyrocketing. Energy associated with access to water could push prices to unheard of levels.
But while water is a major issue the big one right now is energy. It's probably not a great idea to live in the dessert. (I'm looking at you Arizona).
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Aug 27 '12
Wouldn't the US be able to build aqueducts to bring in water from the Great Lakes?
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Aug 27 '12
Remember that those lakes are shared with Canada (except lake Michigan, I suppose). Both sides use lake water in the cities along those coasts, but there'd probably be a lot of tension between the two countries if it was scaled up and water was being sent far afield.
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Aug 27 '12
It already does happen in other parts of the world. In Australia we are always having water restrictions enforced.
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u/Wareagleaaron Aug 27 '12
Alabama is running out of water? I haven't heard anything about that. (outside of the drought)
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u/meeeow Aug 27 '12
Fun fact: when the Iraq war happens, Brazilians panicked because they took the war for oil as an indication that the U.S would go to war for our water in the near future.
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u/5forsilver Aug 27 '12
Look into "slingshot", it was mentioned in a TED talk and can supposedly purify a liter a minute, at a cost of approximately 2 cents a liter. It takes up the space of a minifridge, and can purify any water type, including wastewater and saltwater. I can't vouch for it though, as I haven't done any real research into it.
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u/McSchmieferson Aug 27 '12
Is that something that will "absolutely, without question" occur in the next 10 years?
Source?
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u/buzzkill_aldrin Aug 27 '12
Depending on how you define "run short," it has already happened. Many towns that draw most of their water from underwater aquifers and other groundwater sources are already outpacing the sources' rate of replenishment.
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Aug 27 '12
Unlikely for Americans. The two largest stores of fresh water on the planet are here in America: the Great Lakes and the Guadelupe Aquifer. Other places may have problems - not us. We just have to figure out how to pipe it.
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u/already_taken_ok Aug 27 '12
The only good thing about living in Michigan, there is water everywhere.
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Aug 27 '12
Last week our teacher told us we have enough water to last a hundred years.
And he also said that the oil industry in the US was contaminating theirs.
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u/the_derp_knight Aug 27 '12
Already happening in South-western Australia. Every year we have water restrictions and our main damn is at it's lowest level ever.
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u/thatguyinthehat1 Aug 27 '12
Coming from the driest nation on earth, I would just like to say, chill the fuck out. 3 years of water restrictions and you'll be right. :) Gardens will probably suffer though. :/ sorry r/trees
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u/gsxr Aug 27 '12
If you ask war planners what the next 100 years will hold, water wars is almost always way up on that list. Wars over water will make the current wars look like playground shovefests.
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u/_Russell Aug 26 '12
2013
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
Well, that's true.
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Aug 27 '12
Not necessarily. Maybe we'll all adopt a new calendar system.
Or maybe the world will end.
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u/sane_enough Aug 26 '12
The Republican Party is going to reach a point where it must divide itself and differentiate extremists, who will likely stay with the party, from its moderates who will likely leave the party.
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
How do you support that this will absolutely happen within the next decade?
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u/sane_enough Aug 26 '12
Because the party is already falling all over itself to pretend to be united when it is clear they aren't? It is becoming exponentially more divisive.
So, perhaps not a full split. But I think you will see high rates of politicians leaving the Republican Party. I'd say the rates will have doubled by 2015.
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
Do you think that these issues happening now will actually lead to a full on split in the future, not necessarily in the next decade, that will diminish the purpose of the Republican party all together and cause the establishment of a new political party and set of goals? I'm not hugely versed in politics, so excuse me if I sound naive or misinformed.
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Aug 27 '12
If that's happening now, then why isn't Romney behind in the polls? For as much as they seem to be divided and falling over themselves, enough people blindly hate Obama that no one seems to care.
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u/Happylime Aug 27 '12
Nope. The extremists will die off like Dinosaurs and the Republican party will lose an election so badly ( <40% of the vote) that they change their platform. It will happen.
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Aug 27 '12
That's definitely not going to happen. A major party candidate won't ever get below 40% of the national vote.
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u/swimswiming Aug 27 '12
Completely agree. Generally, though it seems contrary to fact, the most fanatical people are those who don't have deep seated intellectual convictions behind their views, and, because of this, they simply evaporate when their views put them on the loosing side or when the economy does well.
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Aug 27 '12
Problem is, America is too divided for this to happen. Elections will always be close. Too many people have a "vote against the other guy" mentality
No matter how much a party screws up, enough people will always hate the other guy enough to not care
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u/BagOnuts Aug 27 '12
Maybe not to that extent, but your premise is probably correct. It will pretty much be what happened to the Democrats during the progressive movement and the following decades.
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Aug 27 '12
At the very least, this will be the last national election the republicans can run on an openly anti gay, women, and immigrant platform. When they abandon it, that will be the end of the "Southern Strategy".
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Aug 27 '12
Also, swing states will become blue states. Nevada, Idaho, Alaska, and (maybe) Texas will become swing states.
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u/metssuck Aug 27 '12
it's going to have to happen with both parties at some point, but I don't see it happening in the next decade.
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u/LuaAndTheOwls Aug 27 '12
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u/KillaPeas Aug 27 '12
Brood X sounds like a zerg invasion.
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u/CarboToad Aug 27 '12
Fortunately, the United States seems to be turning into Terran. Nothing beats tanks and thors.
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u/AriesEarth Aug 27 '12
I was honestly wondering just the other day when the cicadas were due! Thanks!
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u/ElChrisman99 Aug 27 '12
Come 2021 I'm going to buy a shit load of bug killer and a hazmat suit. God I fucking hate Cicadas...
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u/Harvestmans_lost_leg Aug 27 '12
I've been looking forward to that eclipse ever since I learned of it a few years ago. I think it was actually on stumbleupon.
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u/stumper93 Aug 27 '12
Oh man I was out in Washington, D.C. when Brood X occurred in 2004. So many dead cicadas on the ground.
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u/Nexaz Aug 27 '12
The completion of the Electromagnetic Rail Gun and plans for it to be implemented onto the US Naval Destroyers.
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u/TylerDurdenisreal Aug 27 '12
I mean, we already are implementing an electrmagnetic launch system on aircraft carriers. The biggest problem is energy usage for a true railgun, because something that size needs a nuclear reactor dedicated for single usage.
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u/joshthehappy Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 28 '12
Those ships are designed to be able.to switch the power from engines or rail gun, so both can be powered by the same reactor, but not at the same time. All star trek and shit "transfer power from life support the shields!"
Edit: Bad autocorrect on phone.
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u/RicyRice Aug 27 '12
And then a missile base in Alaska will be taken over by terrorists planning on ransoming a nuke for a corpse.
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u/IriquoisP Aug 27 '12
My names Sn... Pliskin. Lieutenant, Junior Grade.
Tell me everything you know.
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u/TIMEshow Aug 27 '12
Electromagnetic railgun has already been done, it's just that the charge up time for its capacitors is impractical.
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u/rgent006 Aug 27 '12
hey my sister helped design/work on/do smart people things on that and was on Nat Geo for it
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Aug 27 '12
Is the US the only country that has access to this technology at the moment? Is this likely to change?
In what ways will the rail gun change how wars are fought?
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u/insulanus Aug 26 '12
Stem cell therapy will save the life of someone with an underdeveloped vital organ (heart lungs, etc).
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Aug 27 '12
Anyone else see 60 Minutes today? A stem cell researcher projected that stem cells could possibly be used to help people with diseases like Lou Gehrig's, CP or MS within 10 years. And I think it was a rerun.
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u/SartreCam Aug 27 '12
It was really good today! I'd seen the previous story that they talked about at the end, and this was kind of like a follow up, kind of like the second Chris Hansen To Catch A Predator story. It was sad and all about all these people getting bilked out of money, but what that stem-cell researcher lady said really intrigued me as well. Ten years? That's amazing!
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u/wolfvision Aug 27 '12
Done a bit of reading on this, pretty interesting stuff. Something similar reconstructs blood cells and could lead to eternal life, one day
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Aug 27 '12
i really hope so. ive been reading a lot on stem cell therapy with the spinal cord and it would be awesome to have an alternative to surgery!
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Aug 27 '12
You mean like a newborn baby? Or like extend the life of an adult with an underdeveloped organ?
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Aug 27 '12
Something similar already happened. A girl had a heart defect and they fixed it with stem cells. Will post a link if I remember.
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u/314R8 Aug 27 '12
When all the "pro-lifer / anti-choicers" insist Stem Cell is bad, I say that the opinion will change when a Republican (or anti-choicers) child has to go to China or India to get life saving treatment.
Then, they will blame democrats for not making a bigger push in Stem Cell Research.
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u/Leeser Aug 26 '12
A cure for cancer
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u/Diffusional Aug 26 '12
There's really not enough evidence to suggest that this is true, even though we're making a huge amount of progress in identifying and manipulating things like DNA and whatnot, I can't imagine there is any indisputable proof or evidence of a general cure for cancer in a decade.
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u/Leeser Aug 26 '12
There's no proof that we'll even exist an hour from now. I am just going with my gut on this one.
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u/108241 Aug 27 '12
Cancer isn't a disease in the sense that polio or HIV is a disease. It's a mutation, there can never be a cure, just more effective treatments.
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u/whatshisfaceboy Aug 26 '12
Who would fucking downvote this? I bet it was cancer.
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u/guynamedjames Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
I get the joke, but Leeser is essentially guaranteed to be wrong. Cancer is such a huge number of diseases and such a huge number of causes/symptoms that "curing cancer" is still much much harder to cure than the common cold that's always mutating. A statement like "a cure for the most common type of X cancer" or more likely "A 95% survival rate for early-medium detection on Y cancer" would be both more medically sound and more likely. But again, "curing cancer" might as well be "curing gunshots"
edit: I accidently a word
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u/Lazerpig Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
Anyone who thinks a cure for cancer is possible doesn't know what cancer is.
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u/DerMann Aug 27 '12
There will be an underwater research station in 2021 called Sealab.
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u/Ximek Aug 27 '12
I read that as "underwear research station" sounded plausible.
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u/Atnevon Aug 27 '12
Completely unexpected, but the warmest expectation I've seen here.
Also it don't mean butt if it ain't got that jutt. Put that on a poster!
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u/Hinks Aug 26 '12
The United Kingdom will most probably see a new monarch, even if Queen Elizabeth is still alive.
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u/Spudstercool Aug 27 '12
I'm not sure what you mean, do you mean that Queen Elizabeth will self-abdicate? Or the people will insist she's too old and must step down? O_o
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u/m_s_m Aug 27 '12
Although many Royal commentators believe that Queen Elizabeth II will self-abdicate should she no longer be able to fulfill her regal duties, there are some naysayers who believe she will be unwilling to relinquish power.
In recent years The Queen has begun to show signs of mental illness and many believe that her diet of 8 tins of tuna per day has induced mercury poisoning. Her Irn-Bru addiction, has only made matters worse.
Rumours began circulating 5 years ago when she tried to rename Wales "Dianaland" and denied Cornwall's existence. Some royal correspondents pinpoint The Queen's love affair with Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga as the maddening catalyst. After Taufa'ahau Tupou IV came out as a hermaphrodite, The Queen was forced to make a grovelling apology in front of the Commonwealth Heads of Goverments. Shane Warne, then Australian Prime Minister, throw a cricket ball at her head.
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u/superpowerface Aug 27 '12
Doubt it. The British monarchy is essentially a figurehead and the Queen holds little power and doesn't exercise it in any political matters. They do not enter into politics at all (afaik).
They'll wait until she has died to crown the next in line.
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Aug 27 '12
The Queen holds a hell of a lot more power than people generally assume. Look into the monarchy and the commonwealth and the relationship between the Houses of Commons and Lords and the Monarchy; makes for an interesting read.
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u/barc0de Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
No. The queen would see abdication as a dereliction of her duty, the abdication crisis caused by her uncle is still regarded very badly within the family.
What we may see is a regency, with Prince Charles taking over the reponsibilities of the monarch but with the queen still being sovereign
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u/Nijasa Aug 27 '12
i was hoping someone would have said this. from what i understand, it would be unthinkable for her to give up her throne.
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u/zerbey Aug 27 '12
It's possible but she's stated on many occasions she's in it for life. Prince Charles will likely continue to take on more responsibilities though.
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u/Budpets Aug 27 '12
I will make a bet with you now that this doesn't happen. Her mother lived to 101 and drank and smoked. The Queen has also said she'll never abdicate and nobody will try and remove her that's for sure.
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u/adveilleux Aug 27 '12
cars that drive themselves
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u/adveilleux Aug 27 '12
technically already happened, should rephrase to theyl'l be produced on a large scale
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u/NickVenture Aug 27 '12
Google cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles already. I wonder how long it'll take before they become more mainstream.
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u/Snapperlicious Aug 27 '12
Betty White is going to be 100 years old.
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u/unr3a1r00t Aug 27 '12
Service providers will be reduced to only providing internet.
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u/YourFaceSucks Aug 27 '12
This is an interesting theory. What makes you think that SP's would rather become fat pipes, and not capture service revenue opportunities? Does this mean that usage based billing will become the norm? It seems like the cellular companies recently switched over to capped data plans with overage charges, but are starting to rethink that decision?
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u/unr3a1r00t Aug 27 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
Service providers, broadcasters, and media companies can fight it all they want, but the media industry will shift over to where content is delivered exclusively through digital distribution online.
We are in the middle of that change already - it has already started. More and more people are getting rid of traditional TV subscriptions for Netflix and Hulu. NFL Sunday Ticket, long exclusive to DirecTV, is available as a subscription directly from the NFL for online users. Even ones that are not DirecTV customers. MLB, NBA and NHL will surely follow.
Next will be HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime. Right now they don't offer separate subscriptions because of contract obligations with service providers. Like NFL Sunday Ticket with DirecTV, the premium movie channels will require that service providers agree to allowing subscriptions directly to the channels online in order to maintain their contracts to keep the channels at all.
More and more you are seeing TVs and Blu-Ray players come with internet capability with built-in support for Hulu, Netflix, HBO & Cinemax Go, and sports streaming. You have Google, who just announced that they are rolling out their own Internet service, Google Fiber. Offering ridiculous connections speeds for a VERY reasonable price. It's starting small, but it will be rolled out to other areas, or other providers will change their pricing to remain competitive.
Phone? Again, people are progressively dropping traditional land lines at home to save money since they have cell phones. Tiered data? No. That will go away eventually too. It won't be a sustainable business model in an environment where everything is distributed online. Even if it doesn't go away on the mobile market, you won't ever see it on home Internet service. No matter how advanced our wireless technology gets, it will never be as fast or faster than a traditional wired connection.
At the end of the day, regardless of regulations, supply and demand still controls economies and markets. If companies want to remain viable - or survive at all - they will have to adapt to the changing market requirements due to supply and demand. Your standard service providers won't be as big as they used to, because they will only provide one service: Internet. And they will be forced to provide it for a reasonable cost due to stiff competition from companies like Google who understand that bandwidth is cheap. What makes me think that SP's would rather become fat pipes, and not capture service revenue opportunities you ask? They won't have a choice.
Source: I am a technical support rep for a major SP. While I may not see all the details at a policy level, I do see the decisions our subscribers make with the services they subscribe to.
Thanks for the response and question.
EDIT: Spelling and grammar.
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u/NomNom_DePlume Aug 27 '12
I wish I believed that fax machines would die. But they are becoming the nokia of office equipment... they just. won't. die.
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u/willbradley Aug 27 '12
Someone needs to come out with free efaxing. Like Google. Then it'll finally die.
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Aug 27 '12
Because the government won't die, and they want you to fax EVERYTHING to them.
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u/NomNom_DePlume Aug 28 '12
The legal system is like that. Everything must be faxed.
And although I get what everyone has posted (easier to user, simpler, etc).... it is still an electronically transmitted email - that prints out on the other end. It's still an electronic transmission. But many judges / courts, etc. see it as more reliable than an email.
True Story: (the stupid shall remain nameless) ImportantPerson#1 asked to have a doc signed and sent over. Person#2 digitally stamped their signature onto a PDF and emailed it over. ImportantPerson#1 refused... citing the signature as invalid since it was clearly a digital signature (graphical stamp of someone's name, not a true "eSignature). Person#2 then printed out same exact PDF, faxed it, and ImportantPerson#1 accepted the same document because it spit out of the fax machine.
You cannot defeat the might of the fax machine.
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u/plasteredmaster Aug 27 '12
it is a bit trickier to spoof the sending address (number) on a fax, compared to an email.
this makes it easier to confirm the sender.
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u/BagOnuts Aug 27 '12
A lot of people 10 years ago thought that the necessity of paper in the business world would be practically non-existent by now, but the fact is that most industries heavily rely on it, even when complemented with computer tech today. Same thing with fax machines.
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u/Plutor Aug 27 '12
Anyone who thinks fax machines are inferior has never set one up. No scanner based system will ever come close to being as simple to configure and use.
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u/nzwasp Aug 27 '12
Facebook will die and be replaced by something better.
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u/icydeadppl Aug 27 '12
Someone who almost no-one has ever heard of will be the most powerful person in the world.
Who had heard of Obama in 2002? I think he was a pretty junior state senator and I doubt many people, apart from those who voted for him, would have known of him. The same can be said for a lot of POTUSs due to the term limits. George Bush was a bit different because he was from a political family so his name was known, but Bill Clinton in 1982 was just becoming Arkansas governor again, I doubt most people in the USA could say who the Arkansas governor is now, let alone those outside the country.
Most of the people I (a fairly politically aware Brit) can name in the Republican Party seem unelectable (please don't let me down USA voters!), so a new guy will have to rise from somewhere. On the Democratic side unless Hilary Clinton, Biden or one of the prominent members of the current cabinet run for president I doubt many people outside the USA will have heard of them.
The same can be said for many nations, it's amazing how far someone can go in 10 years, from a local polititian/community organiser to leader of the free world.
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Aug 26 '12 edited Aug 27 '12
Google will sue Apple for patent infringements.
Edit: Also phones that operate through glasses and gloves with hand gestures.
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u/Redsox933 Aug 26 '12
Incredible acts of government sponsored stupidity.
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u/Krases Aug 27 '12
It will be amazing. Some idiot politician somewhere who never heard of prohibition or the massive, immensely failed war on drugs will try to outlaw cigarettes across the board.
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u/FerdThePenguinGuy Aug 26 '12
A significant number of December 21, 2012 doomsday prophets will feel really, really stupid.
The rest of them will move on to other dates.