We’re a society that wants everything now, now, now. And lucky for us, innovators and developers have come up with plenty of ways that we can have just about anything now. Many businesses have moved online; some have been made obsolete due to the existence of the Internet. You’ll be surprised by what some industries are forced to do to cut the fat.
Record stores
With music lovers turning to the web to purchase music — if they’re purchasing it at all with free or low-cost providers like Pandora and Spotify — only die-hard fans of the feel and smell of a CD or record are still going to the trouble of driving to a record store. One of the most prominent chains of music retailers, Tower Records, closed down all 89 of its stores in the early 2000s.
Camera film manufacturing
Only a true artist of photography is sticking to traditional film cameras today. In the last 10 years, the number of prints produced from digital cameras has grown over 40 percent. Meanwhile film camera sales have fallen by over 50 percent.
Crop dusters
With crop dusting being a risky profession and new farming technology being developed rapidly, the form in which we see fungicides being sprayed over crops will begin to change. Plus, commercial airlines are overshadowing small crop-dusting companies.
Gay bars
With the gay and lesbian community becoming increasingly accepted across the nation, many bars that were once exclusively gay are becoming more generic hang-out spots or shutting down altogether as the LGBT community branches out to sexually neutral bars.
Newspapers
Since the 1990s when the Internet hit the media scene, the number of circulating newspapers has dropped remarkably fast. Some newsrooms across the country cut staff nearly in half.
Pay phones
In 1997 there were over two million pay phones across the nation. That number has been cut in half today. Not only are the kiosks hardly being used today with the boom of cell phones, but many cities are cutting back on them because they’re often associated with crime.
Used book stores
Used book stores used to be the go-to place find an endearing, nostalgic book you read in high school or as a child. Now we have Amazon. The few used book stores that are still in business are making a majority of their income by listing their books online, and many are closing their physical storefronts to become strictly online retailers.
Real wallets
Look around any popular bar of 20-somethings, and instead of thick, leather wallets you’ll see money clips or smartphones with attachments that hold credit cards. As we become a paperless society — with almost any retailer you can think of accepting credit cards, and all loyalty program information saved in an online system — the wallet is just dead weight.
Telemarketing
Telemarketing took a hard hit when the notorious do not call list was developed in the early 200’s. Cell phones, for example, are exempt from automated telemarketing calls and with many people not having landlines today, there goes the majority of telemarketers’ target lists.
Coin-operated arcades
With Nintendo Wii, online gaming and Xbox 360 booming, many charming old coin-operated arcade establishments are going out of business. In the late 90s there were 10,000 arcades in the U.S. Today that number has dwindled to under 3,000.
