25 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME
EXTINCT IN AMERICA
25. U.S. Post Office
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With email, and online services, they are a relic of the past. (Refer to #9) Packages are also sent faster and cheaper with FedEx or UPS. (I’m not sure about this one because you still cannot send a letter or birthday card through FedEx or UPS for only 44 cents. Sure, you can send an ecard, but I do not believe they will overtake Hallmark for a long time yet.)
24. Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel Factors like an acceleration of the print ‘fade rate’ and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts 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.
23. Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization, as we know it. The argument is if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind.
22. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000
left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City, which is now out of business. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop last year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
21. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high-speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
20. Phone Landlines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
Maryland’s icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay. Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did
a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Over-fishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.
18. VCR’s
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a bestseller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continue to spread. They’ve killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana. More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.
16. Ham Radio
Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide)
wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.
15. The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. 20/20 reports swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of worry if someone gets hurt they’ll sue. And that’s exactly what happened in Seattle. Katie Hofstetter, who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park, sued the city of Bellingham. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post ‘Keep out!’ signs.
14. Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly
tied to No 20 our list — the decline of landlines. According to
USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped
159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It’s logical as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, there will be fewer answering machines.
13. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn’t require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional’s choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006,
it announced it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market — only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to
75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
12. Incandescent Bulbs
Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement
and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports 2007 sales for Energy Star Cols nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to twelve years.
11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys
The U.S. claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of
facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts and gambling casinos.
10. The Milkman
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by
1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4%. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they certainly are a dying breed.
9. Hand-Written Letters
In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion emails were sent each day, 2 million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world’s population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and
the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
8. Wild Horses
It is estimated 100 years ago, as many as 2 million horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National
Geographic News estimated the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, The National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board states there are 32,000 free roaming
horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the
total number of free-range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.
7. Personal Checks
According to an American Bankers Association report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two
years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments — for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers’ recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
6. Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were
still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since
2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there is not much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.
5. Mumps & Measles
Despite what has been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually truly are disappearing from the United States. In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.
4. Honeybees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire, plummeting so enormously, and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honeybee. Very scary! Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers — and along with it, their livelihood.
3. News Magazines and TV News
While the TV evening newscasts haven’t gone anywhere over the last
several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.
2. Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% — or 13 million individuals — who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you’ll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital. (This has already happened.)
1. The Family Farm
Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn’t yet been published). 91% of the U.S. farms are small, family farms.
Both interesting and saddening, isn’t it?
*Source unknown
Do you have any items you would add to this list? If you do, please feel free to share.
As always, I look forward to your comments.
Later,
Mike
