What industries have been greatly changed by the internet?

[citruscurtis]

I never thought I'd miss Blockbuster - boy do I miss Blockbuster. And going out to the movies - we rarely do that. Why spend time and money going to see a mediocre movie you can see on a streaming service in a couple of months anyway? Is it just me or has the quality of movies taken a serious nose-dive too?

Currently at our Harkins there are 14 choices...7 of them horror movies, a screening of toy story and 2 like freaky Friday... rehash...so a nose dive indeed ... last movie I watched was Queen ... but do have Damon Odyssey on my radar

 

[citruscurtis]

Sounds like a bad position to be in as a newspaper owner.

Their best customers only have a few years left and will the next generation that ages up still want newspapers? Sure there will always be new old people, but will there always be old people that want a physical paper?

Observation is correct. None of the young people subscribe on our street as our community is transitioning from snow bird winter visitor to cheap housing and Arizona just changed a law that legal notices no longer have to be published... which for our newspaper is 4 pages

 

[barkley]

I see it with public social and health services. when I worked in the field individuals and families were assigned an individual case worker. now all applications are done online and a computer program determines eligibility for better or worse (enter something wrong and get denied a program a family desparatly needs/purposely enter something incorrectly and get approved for something you are entirely ineligible to). used to be there were flesh and blood staff reviewing applications who knew the programs/were trained to help people access services they desparatly needed, do early fraud detection and prevention for those with illegal intent. now it's strictly data entry people and when you call you get whomever is next in the call center queue and they just recite the same information off the website that the caller has already read and is confused about

 

[SC Minnie]

I know knowing about the paper industry. What changes has the internet triggered?

People aren't printing as much anymore. News is read online for the most part instead of the daily newspaper. Even documents that need signature use e-signatures instead of printing and ink signed. Some schools no longer use printed books relying on computers and tablets.

 

[Praying Colonel]

When I started law school in the 80s, all research was conducted in hard copy books and journals. The law school, had this new thing called Westlaw, which was online research with a dedicated proprietary terminal. We were the first class to be taught on how to use it.

When I retired last year, the law library in our building had become a conference room, and the only law books were 4 shelves of random volumes they kept around as decoration.

 

[wabbott]

Newspapers, television, news reporting. Information gatekeepers can no longer tell us what to see, hear, or read. It will have the same degree of impact that the invention of the printing press did 500 years ago.

 

[Lumpy1106]

People aren't printing as much anymore. News is read online for the most part instead of the daily newspaper. Even documents that need signature use e-signatures instead of printing and ink signed. Some schools no longer use printed books relying on computers and tablets.

I'm an engineer and had always relied on my personal library of reference manuals. My company converted us to "open office" and directed us to take it all home or trash it - there would be no room in the office for physical copies of books. They gave us electronic access to reference manuals but it's incomplete and frankly not the same. I don't miss all the physical copies of correspondence though. Emails are a pian but at least they don't take up space.

 

[MICKIMINI]

I agree with OP!

Art. My original paintings were sold at EPCOT, QVC and other big companies and small art galleries all over the US. Even in the 1990's a certain now defunct XMAS shop famous in New England was knocking off my furniture and making it in China. Now, original artwork is really only purchased by discerning people who actually want an original, one of a kind piece made by the hand of an artist and can afford it. Knock off's are easier than ever with AI and dirt cheap to replicate and then sell on the internet. It is sad to think most artists won't have the opportunities I did by getting themselves out there and taking a chance. I started with zero $$.

I am so glad I had my run before the internet and retired though not by choice (darn tick!)