Top 10 Things That Will Become Obsolete in the Future

As technology continues to progress, many of the creations, inventions and developments we’ve come to know and love seem to be slowly fading away. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 things that will become obsolete in the near future.    For this list, we’re looking at those things that we might still use on a relatively regular basis at the beginning of the 21st century, but that are likely to soon become obsolete thanks to advancements in technology. We’re talking about tech that is coming in the near future here though, so concepts that may see the light of day in the distant future will not be included.  

Even as we speak, physical storage media such as Blu-Ray, DVD, CDs, vinyl records, and memory cards are already on their way out. Tell us: when was the last time you even bought a CD? Disks are quickly being replaced with streaming services like and Netflix, and viewers now have the ability to buy digital movies directly from their home entertainment system. Meanwhile, cloud storage companies like Dropbox are aiming to replace the hard drive, and businesses like Google are phasing out SD card slots on some of their phones. It’s only a matter of time before they all go the way of the floppy disk.  

Show of hands: who actually still has a landline phone? It doesn’t count if you still live with your parents… Of course, it was the telecommunications device of choice before the invention of the cell phone, and it usually sat on a desk beside a chair or it was attached to the wall. However, these days, mobile phones have significantly reduced the number of landlines, as more and more people are opting out of those contracts so they can just carry around their cell instead. According to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics, as many as 41% of American households no longer owned a landline phone in 2013, accounting for well over 100 million people.  

Well, at least Mother Nature will be happy with this one! Every day, we are finding ourselves dealing with less and less paper. Print media that require paper, such as newspapers, books, and magazines, are all readily available online, either through websites, e-book readers or digital subscriptions. Meanwhile, paperless documents, such as PDFs, are easy to transfer and bring into our every day routines. American money is even made from linen and cotton. Of course, there will always be enthusiasts who prefer hard copies, but paper as we know it today will soon be significantly altered or entirely absent.    

#7: Over-the-Air Broadcast

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Traditional over-the-air broadcasts will soon be a thing of the past thanks to an increasingly digital world. Apps like Spotify offer music lovers an alternative to traditional radio, with a paid subscription eliminating commercials and allowing listeners to customize their experience. Traditional over-the-air television is all but obsolete as well, as more and more television stations across the United States and Canada switch their broadcasting to digital. This means anyone with an analog TV is SOL. While it is possible to obtain free channels with a converter box and an antenna, many people are making the switch to digital cable, or just cutting the cord entirely.  

Speaking of which, cords and chargers are also on their way out. Is anything safe!? Technologies like Bluetooth and NFC are providing clean, cordless alternatives to tangled wires and having to hide unsightly scenes.  Rather than plugging your phone into a device, now all you have to do is set it up with a Bluetooth speaker and you’re good to go. The wireless age has also brought us technologies like IKEA’s wireless chargers, which allow you to juice your phone simply by laying it down on the surface. These technologies will only continue to grow, so prepare your goodbyes if you’re attached to physical devices and cords!   

Keys aren’t the only things that smartphones are slowly making obsolete. Consumers are quickly giving up traditional payment methods, such as cash and plastic credit cards, so wallets may soon be good for nothing as well. For example, digital alternatives are already available on your phone through mobile payment. Multiple studies are predicting that mobile payments will continue to grow and that people will turn to mobile wallets more and more in the near future. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before we drop the leather and go fully online.  

Let’s face it: glasses are pretty annoying. They easily fog up, they’re breakable, and they get dirty so often that cleaning them becomes a pain. As such, it won’t be long before they’re replaced by easier solutions for vision correction. LASIK, or laser eye surgery, is more accessible and affordable than ever before. If you’re afraid of going under the laser, then contact lenses offer a popular alternative, especially for athletes. As if that weren’t enough, a Canadian company by the name of Ocumetics Technology Corp is testing a Bionic Lens that can be implanted into the eye to give humans vision three times better than 20/20.  

#3: Animal (or Meat) Farms

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This is perhaps the one thing on this list that no one will miss, as meat farms and all the controversy that come with them will cease to be a problem in the coming years. This is because scientists around the world are quickly creating entirely lab-grown meats, also varyingly called invitro, cultured or synthetic meat - and experts say that these will soon be readily available. In 2013, professor Mark Post and his team unveiled the first entirely lab-created beef burger, which was assembled from cow stem cells that were grown into muscle strips.  This “schmeat,” as it’s been called, aims to be an affordable, moral, and environmentally friendly alternative to eating the meat of a once-living animal.   

As we enter the age of automation, our world is about to be flipped upside down. We won’t be interacting with humans anymore, but with machines. Telemarketing is already becoming less human as the business is slowly incorporating the use of robocalls, or automated phone calls that use computers and pre-recorded messages – not unlike how the human salespeople follow scripts when they try to sell their products or services.  Meanwhile, customer service reps, like fast food employees, are also in dire straits, or they will be, as self-serve kiosks become mainstream and provide us with a less error-filled alternative. In addition, call support centers will probably become entirely automated. So we’ve gotta ask: will you welcome our new robot overlords?    Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Car Mirrors Streaming Set-Top Boxes Cable Companies  

Whether security cameras are spying on us at every street corner, or companies are compiling information about us from our mobile devices, any semblance of privacy will soon be entirely absent from our lives. It appears that some governments around the world are becoming more like Big Brother with their ability to demand phone records and Internet search histories, among other things. Even your iPhone can track your every move and provide startlingly accurate depictions of where you’ve been and for how long! So what advice do we have about this for you? Get used to it.    Do you agree with our list? What else do you think will become obsolete in a few short years? For more relevant top tens published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.