
50 things that are being killed by the internet - mgcreed
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6133903/50-things-that-are-being-killed-by-the-internet.html
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swombat
Crap article. Loose thinking and loose writing.

Examples:

 _5) Punctuality_

 _Before mobile phones, people actually had to keep their appointments and
turn up to the pub on time. Texting friends to warn them of your tardiness
five minutes before you are due to meet has become one of throwaway rudenesses
of the connected age._

Texting is not "the internet".

 _The ubiquity of free, hard-core pornography on the web has put an end to one
of the most dreaded rights of passage for teenage boys – buying dirty
magazines._

A right of passage is an agreement that someone has the right to pass through
a certain area of land (usually to get to their own land). A rite of passage
is a ritual. The author no doubt meant the latter.

 _10) Watches_

 _Scrabbling around in your pocket to dig out a phone may not be as elegant as
glancing at a watch, but it saves splashing out on two gadgets._

Again, phones != internet. Phones had clocks on them long before they had web
access.

This could have been a moderately interesting article, but unfortunately it
was just gimmicky hot air.

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nuweborder
These are my 5 favorites (#s 3,11,34,40 & 46), simply because they have all
been killed just because current web companies for some reason seem to not be
able to get the model right when it comes to distributing online music.
Napster was the last company to really stick it to the major lables, and as
Pandora has just been proven to, they were hit with the infamous FCC
regulations. We can fix these issues with a different model and the
distribution of power.

3) Listening to an album all the way through The single is one of the unlikely
beneficiaries of the internet – a development which can be looked at in two
ways. There's no longer any need to endure eight tracks of filler for a couple
of decent tunes, but will "album albums" like Radiohead's Amnesiac get the
widespread hearing they deserve?

11) Music stores In a world where people don't want to pay anything for music,
charging them £16.99 for 12 songs in a flimsy plastic case is no business
model.

34) Mainstream media The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News in
the US have already folded, and the UK's Observer may follow. Free news and
the migration of advertising to the web threaten the basic business models of
almost all media organisations.

40) Undiscovered artists Posting paintings to deviantART and Flickr – or poems
to writebuzz – could not be easier. So now the garret-dwellers have no
excuses.

46) Staggered product/film releases Companies are becoming increasingly
draconian in their anti-piracy measure, but are finally beginning to
appreciate that forcing British consumers to wait six months to hand over
their money is not a smart business plan.

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Empact
This list is terrible for its omissions. The most important:

* Local bank branches, thanks to Direct Banking (e.g. HSBC Direct, ING Direct)

* Local realtors, thanks to the likes of <http://redfin.com>

* Local and Community colleges, thanks to the likes of <http://straighterline.com>

* Credit cards and Banks as the sole distributor of unsecured credit, thanks to the likes of <http://prosper.com>

And so on...

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Some of those things are interesting, but they're hardly very influential at
this point.

Are there fewer local bank branches today as compared with 10 years ago? Maybe
(though I'd like to see the data), but is it due to online banking or just
industry consolidation?

Are there fewer realtors? Almost certainly, but it's also almost certainly all
about the real estate bubble popping, and virtually nothing to do with Redfin.

Are local and community colleges being killed by straighterline.com?
Ummm...no. Maybe someday, but not now. College attendance is actually probably
up as compared with 10 years ago.

Prosper.com and other P2P lenders are interesting, but 99.9% of people have
never heard of them and still rely on credit cards and banks for unsecured
credit, so they're hardly _killing_ anything.

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electronslave
51) My Lawn

All of these kids on it are trampling the grass.

