A little off topic, but just a few thoughts. As network speeds continue to increase and the internet becomes more and more accessible, will we move back into the age of owning dumb terminals?
Soon there will be no need to own software or install/uninstall software onto our computers. Everything can possibly move to the ‘cloud’. Some antivirus companies offer online services, so you don’t have to keep updating your local virus definitions. Traditional locally installed software utilities are increasingly available on the net, like archiving, file zipping, file format conversion, document editing (Google docs), gaming. Maybe one day most of the operating system will also reside on the net. Just like it used to be long time ago… we’ll end up with dumb terminals and mainframes. (?)
This concept is also extending to other mediums than software. Movies, books, music. It’s been a while since I have bought any music album. Now I just listen to my online playlist, I don’t need to buy songs, or movies. I will be able to watch any movie at a touch of a button, when all movies are stored online.
Books have shown a lot of resistance, since the current generation grew up reading physical books. It’s the same resistance older people show to computers. Our coming generations will be more accepting to e-books, especially with devices like the Kindle.
If everything moves into the cloud we might own nothing and subscribe to everything :) I wonder what other categories the cloud might affect?
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