8-Tracks of the Future

The shorter of the short people wants desperately to make a call from a phone booth. He's seen them in old movies and really wants to try one, as if it is some exotic phenomenon. Payphones are simply pointless when everyone has a cellphone.

I drive by the vacant shells of several former video rental stores on my way into the office each day. Yes, in these difficult economic times, many businesses have gone under, but what we are seeing here is not just a player going away, but an entire industry. Video rental places will be things of the past. Netflix and on-line delivery will make them unnecessary.

I recently past the place where Chick's Records used to be. I cannot tell you how many hours of my teenager years I spent looking through boxes of discount albums upstairs at Chick's. But with downloads becoming the delivery means of choice, it seems that music stores will become cultural dinosaurs. As we bid a sad adieu to Borders, will Amazon make this true of bookstores in general as well?

What else that has been a normal part of life in our culture is doomed to fade away in the not so distant future?