What Businesses Will Be Gone In 10 Years
Here are 10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years.
1. Record stores: One of the most prominent music retailers, Tower Records, shut down all 89 stores last year after concluding it couldn’t withstand the onslaught of online music stores and chains like Wal-Mart, which can offer lower prices and sell other items to offset the smaller number of CDs being sold.
2. Camera film manufacturing: According to The Chicago Tribune, from May 2006 to May 2007, the volume of prints made from digital cameras grew by 34%. Film camera sales, meanwhile, fell by 49%, while digital cameras sales continued to grow. Of American internet users, 70% own a digital camera.
3. Crop dusters: They’ll be around in 10 years, but likely not in their present form. The average age of the typical crop duster is 60, the number of crop dusters is dwindling, and the profession can be dangerous.
4. Gay bars: Around the country gay bars have been going out of business as gay men and women have been gaining greater acceptance in society. What used to be a hangout for people who felt unwelcome elsewhere is becoming less necessary.
5. Newspapers: Some people thought they were through when radio and TV news came about. Even after the fax machine revolutionized offices, some people predicted that everyone would have their news faxed in. But the numbers have been falling precipitously since the 1990s when the internet came on the scene. In the past year, the Audit Bureau of Circulations twice has posted drops averaging 2.1 and 2.8% over six-month periods. Newsrooms across the country have been hemorrhaging staff.
6. Pay phones: In 1997, there were more than 2 million pay phones in the U.S.; now there are approximately half as many. There are probably always going to be certain places like airports and hotels that offer pay phones, as long as there are people who don’t own or can’t afford cell phones. Because phone kiosks on the streets are a favorite for drug dealers, who don’t want to have their own numbers tapped and tracked, cities are shedding them.
7. Used bookstores: They’ve been closing fast, and those that are still open are relying on what’s making them obsolete: the internet.
8. Piggy banks: You may chuckle, but as we continue gravitating toward a paperless society, it’s not difficult to imagine a day when piggy banks no longer exist.
9. Telemarketing: The good news for people who hate telemarketing calls is that the industry may finally be dying; the bad news is that it may take a while. Telemarketing has been hit hard by the national Do-Not Call list that was established five years ago, and sales have been stagnant, but the industry still managed to bring in $393 billion in revenue last year. Some of this is due to clever marketing. The national Do-Not Call list is set to expire in 2008, unless you remember to register again.
10. Coin-operated arcades: With Nintendo Wii, casual gaming online and the Xbox 360, the video game arcade industry is thriving, but not the standalone brick-and-mortar arcades. For those of you who thought arcades were already dead, they still exist–at movie theaters, miniature golf courses and other touristy spots. Ten years ago, there were 10,000 arcades in the nation, and now the number is close to 3,000, according to the American Amusement Machine Association.
