I wonder if stores know that their digital downfall is coming? It's been slowly creeping along and getting more advanced as it moves forward.
I used to buy cassettes of music to listen to, then compact disks, I also used to buy VHS movies and had a huge collection, until DVD movies came out, which made my VHS collection obsolete, I had to re-buy the movies I loved most in DVD format and my collection dwindled.
Portable hard drives came out next and you could digitally store your collection on them. Well, around 10 or so movies when the hard drives first came out, but now, with the storage capacities well past the 4 terabyte mark you could put most collections on one portable hard drive and have room to spare.
The technology has moved even past this point, and now we can stream anything we want without the need to download anything. If we want to save our favorites we can use a cloud, an internet based storage area that takes up very little space on your hard drive.
Video games can now be played like this and be streamed right from the cloud. You can also digitally download them as well. The best part about being able to digitally download anything is that there is no need for an extended warranty, or a storage area in your home that takes up a lot of space. In most cases the place where you bought your game, movie, or CD, will keep a record of your purchase and if your machine that plays these things dies or blows up, you can retrieve them for free after you buy a replacement machine.
But what about store owners that have to pay for staff, and their building, power and other utilities? They can't give out a deal like that because they will lose money and eventually be shut down.
The internet is always growing and eventually there will be no retail stores out there, or a lot less of them. You can already order your groceries online and have them delivered to your house. You can buy clothes online and get them the same way, it might not be as quick and we might have to wait longer to get an item we really want but that is a sacrifice a lot of us are starting to make.
This will change too and the demand for faster service is always growing, soon you will be able to 3D scan your body for perfectly fitting clothes, and other attire. With everything we gain from digitally downloading our life we also lose something as well, our privacy for one, anything you want to buy online will require a ton of our personal information, our banking information as well. It will take only one type of hack to steal anyone's personal body scan and all their personal information. Think of what a smart criminal could do with that information.
The other thing we will lose is being out in public, with digital downloading their will less reasons for you to leave your house, I can see obesity becoming a worse problem than it is already. The act of leaving your home and dealing with society less is going to hurt us as well, in ways I cannot fully comprehend in this moment.
The world is changing rapidly and physical stores are slowly disappearing because they can't compete with the online ones. It might not be the stores that suffer, it might be the people that used to go to them as well, this could be everyone's, Digital Downfall.
Scott Goerz
