Tech Changes-

Death of old favorites

Marshall Brain, HowStuffWorks.com

As we stand here at the beginning of a new decade, have you thought about everything that died in the past one? As new technologies rise up, they often kill off older technologies. Let's review some of the death and destruction that has occurred over the past 10 years.

The record store: This is hard to believe today, but just 10 years ago people bought all of their music at record stores. Napster, which marked the beginning of the end for record stores, was invented in June of 1999. Before that, no one had ever heard of an MP3 file. Napster made the MP3 file a household name, and dramatically boosted the idea of portable MP3 players (invented in 1998). The iPod first appeared in 2001, along with iTunes. With the rise of digital music, the need to go to a physical store to buy music died, and record stores started closing.

Compact discs: The CD is now in its death throes, as it is being replaced by electronic music files. And with death of CDs the concept of an "album" has lost much of its power. People now buy their songs one at a time.

Cassette tapes: The cassette tape lived alongside the CD because you could record onto a cassette, and cars and stereos all had cassette players. The portable MP3 player killed the cassette.

Other tapes: DVD players were still rare in 2000, having been first introduced in 1997 in the United States, so everyone was using videotape cassettes for their videos. Most answering machines still used tape, and camcorders all used tape in 2000. Video cassettes have been completely replaced by DVDs. Camcorders may still use tape, but more and more the tape is replaced by flash memory, so this last vestige of tape is about to disappear as well.

Answering machines: They are pretty much dead, having been replaced by voice mail systems that come with your cell phone plan or your telephone service.

Telephones: The entire telephone industry has been transformed in the past decade. In the year 2000, just about everyone had a land-line connection to the local phone company, and then had an account with one of the big long-distance carriers (AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.) to handle non local calls. Many people today have no connection to the local phone company at all, and the concept of long distance has largely died. Most telephony is now handled by your cell phone or your Intenet connection.

Film cameras: The digital camera killed film. In 2000, a good digital camera had 2 megapixel resolutions, very little memory, poor battery life and cost about $500. Digital cameras were luxury items, and if you wanted a "decent" picture you still used film. Today film is almost completely dead. Even the movie industry - the last big user of film - is rapidly going digital because the cost of film and processing is so high.

TV and monitors: Remember the cathode ray tube? Your TV and computer monitors were as big as buses. Now they are thin and light. Internet, the killer TV Guide is dead because of a combination of cable boxes and the Internet.

Internet, the Killer

Stock quotes in the newspaper used to be common (and you used to call a stock broker to do a stock trade). That has been completely replaced by the Internet.
Encyclopedias died along with phone books and the Yellow Pages.
Paper maps were replaced by online mapping sites, which were then replaced by GPS receivers.
Newspaper classified ads took a big hit from online classified sites, such as Craigslist.

Uphill Battles

Today there are several centuries-old technologies struggling because of the Internet.
Bookstores face the same problem that record stores did.
Printed newspapers and magazines are in peril (although, most will survive in new digital form).
The audience for the network news has been falling as more and more people get their news
from the Internet.

The next decade could be even more interesting, and we will get to watch it happen before our very eyes.