The Evolution of Commerce - What Industries are Dying, What's Thriving?

Will the public library system reinvent itself or fade away? 

Could the public library only be for the poor in the future or just close?  What will library wokers do if they all close? 

Remember Stars Wars the 3rd of the first batch there is a Librarian that cannot help with a star chart with Obi wan.  Humm, AI won't take their jobs?       

In 20 to 50 years labor could be a thing of the past. Trucking, shipping and receiving, manufacturing, farming are not that far from full automation being feasible.

Autodesk and others are aggressively working on 3D printing for construction. They are also further along on

There’s a bunch of people that try to promote their so-called sports expertise on twitter and sell
“VIP” picks of the days all the time . These people only seem to be growing .

now is the time to buy land to grow marijuana for the day it becomes legal nationwide. I can't even partake, I literally get sick and throw up when I try it, but for writing is on the wall for the new industry.

I think cobblers, alchemists, blacksmiths, and village idiots will all make a comeback.

Dying: Anything humans make.

Thriving: Scams.

Military equipment, weapons, arms in general are thriving in this chaos. 

One thing that seems sure with all the newer technology is that obesity and laziness will not only thrive but reach levels we can’t even imagine.
Die: Personal relationships as we know it. We will live on internet boards with some very awful people. Oh wait....

Small bookstores have actually made a significant comeback already. The big stores don't offer much that Amazon doesn't. But small bookstores give a little community and intimacy that Amazon obviously doesn't at all.

I sell on Amazon and other pod services. I'm going to do it full time eventually. Best passive income I love it

Double post

Online retail is driving huge growth in delivery services. Not just UPS, FedEx, and DHL either.

Excellent topic, Xtra!!!

Growth, well, continued growth, is government contracting.  Not only DoD based, either.  All gov't agencies need massive SW and systems upgrades/renovations/replacements.  And the agencies can't do it themselves.  They don't have the resources (ie: people), and can't afford them.  They will have the budget to pay someone else to do it, though.

 

the corrugated packaging industry is as strong as ever, and rapidly continuing growth.

there are a ton of finesse parts of manufacturing that are tough to automate

 

many things like robotic welding and body shops for automotive are realtively simple, but assembly of all interiors are tough

 

maintenance of all this stuff is also an increasing industry

 

computers are not reliable from the fact that how often do you have to re-boot or re-set things

 

it is coming, but it is unlikely to happen in our lifetime

Declining industries. Printing and publishing. I work for a company that sells hardware and software into that industry. The thing I have noticed from a front row seat is that when people project the future for the industries that will be most impacted by technology, they always assume that other than for employment aspects, technology is universally positive. It’s not. Not by a long shot. We were doing work in the 1990s that is literally impossible to do today. The never ending quest for ever lower prices for equipment and consumables has led the companies that make this equipment to make products which are hot garbage. Also, people used to be willing to pay for things like professional photo shoots where the ethos of 2018 is, “we had my nephew do this on his iPhone” or download it from our Facebook page. It is undeniably true that you can get final product cheaper and faster than ever before, but it is largely garbage. If I was to coin a term for this, it might be “the Ikea effect.” Sure, they can sell you a dresser cheaper than you have ever bought one before, but it’s not made of wood, and you’ll be lucky to get twelve years out of it before it falls apart. I have a feeling this price/quality trade off is in many more industries than mine.

I think a lot of these micro breweries and distilleries will tank as soon as we see any type of significant economic downturn. Traverse City has brewpubs for days, and distilleries tucked away here and there, all dependent on what they see as an ever increasing supply of tourist disposable income. A little stock market tumble here, decreased corporate spending there, some unemployment, it will all fall down.

In ten or so years, you will see relatively few privately owned cars within the large cities across the country.  They take up too much space in terms of parking, they pollute and are the source of too much user-error (i.e. accidents).  Cities will tax the living crap out of people who want their own car and will outsource individual transportation to companies that provide fleet service to individuals on a pay-for-use basis.  Push a button on your phone and the robo-car arrives within seconds.  The cars will be autonomous and electric, so the need for auto insurance will drastically change.  Eventually, self-driven cars will be seen as being so dangerous to the public, that they will be outlawed in the big cities.  The need for traffic lights and most of the annoying things that cause traffic jams, especially nasty taxi drivers, will be eliminated.  On another positive note, no more fear of getting a DUI, so a bunch of low-end lawyers will be out of work!

I work for a telecom provider and can't believe that people still order landlines.  I would guess that at least 50% of landlines have disappeared since I started though.  When I was hired it was the dot-com boom era and just about everyone was ordering a second line for their AOL dialup on 56k modem.

I work in a factory, some odd jobs but a large portion of it is fixing automation.  So I have programmed robots, understand PLCs, conveyance and process equipment.  I feel like there's a strong future in this.  Automation makes less mistakes than people and when it works properly, can also outwork them.  But I think the call for automation of many forms is going to need technical skills to set it up and service it when it fails.

I think a large percentage of the current retail experience enjoys a bubble formed by the trough in fuel prices.  I think low fuel prices cause people to spend more on prepared/restaurant foods.

I also think it disproportionately affects Amazon, so many of their products are shipped twice, once across the Pacific Ocean, and second thru ground distribution in the US.  I think the "double handling" is going to be challenged by fuel price increases.

I think there's a career in web design, a site designer who can make things easy to use, lots of details and photos available is also going to be a skill in demand.

Also at the end of the day, I feel like its important to implant in my kids that they need to be part of the "investor class".  Which isn't a swipe at anyone on either side, but over a lifetime there's so much money to be made having a pathway into owning stocks/bonds/mutual funds.  It just requires a mindset and a little financial disciipline.

Thriving:
Polysilicon manufacturers globally
Green energy especially solar
Cyber security

Soon to be dead or dying:
Coal plants
Nuke plants
Video stores

FWIW I’ve been a huge individual investor for about 20 years. I’ve made more mistakes in a year early on than some make in a lifetime. Although those mistakes really suck and cripple you in the short run, you gain so muck valuable knowledge it helps you exponentially going forward.

2 opinions I have right now is to stay away from cryptos and with any discecianary income you have buy DQ especially if this trade war keeps going.

After global populations are ravaged by drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, manufacturing will grind to a halt in much of the world as the complex communications networks and physical infrastructures necessary to sustain it will have collapsed along with the population.

However, the remaining pockets of population will still be large enough to sustain demand for the everyday manufactured items we take unthinkingly for granted today. The value of containers of all shapes and sizes and materials, simple manufactured items, paper, oil and other petroleum products, metals of all kinds, and even some kinds of clothing will skyrocket. The list is almost endless.

The places these things will be found will be in the gigantic number of dumps, landfills, recycling facilities, and random garbage piles that we don't pay attention to today. Control of these "mines" will be prized and fought over, and the men and women who are in charge of the largest of them will be as wealthy in their time as the Kochs and the Mercers are today.

I am involved in IT Security Awareness training / culture initiatives. The #1 obstacle to growth is difficulty retaining IT security professionals who have kept their knowledge current as attack vectors evolve.