Now, let's not jump the gun here. Let's go through each of their points...
DVDs are starting to slip. More and more people are realizing that the movies that they want to see can be seen with Netflix (yes, they do ship most movies on DVD, but you're not PURCHASING the DVD. Just renting). The 3 Blockbuster Video stores around my house have all gone out of business within the last 3 months, as there aren't enough people renting from their locations. Half the people I know use Netflix or Hulu (sorry for those outside of the US) to watch content. DVD purchases ARE going down.
It does say that it's external hard drives, and not hard drives in general as going out of style. I think that is the case, as most people use external hard drives the same way that online storage sites are used...
The smartphone attempts are going to go under, as no one has the brand recognition to compete with the iPhone or the Blackberry. Those are household names. People would much rather buy something that other people know about than what's actually technologically better.
The digital compact cameras I can easily see going out of style, as most phones are starting to have the capabilities of a somewhat decent camera. I mean, look at the Nexus One, Google's Android phone, which has a 5 megapixel camera in it, and it's smaller than an iPhone. It's very possible that digital cameras will start to go the way of the bison.
Newspaper subscriptions are diminishing. I've seen local newspapers go out of business because of the internet. People can get their news up to the minute, instead of whenever the latest print is made. I'm sure the newspaper industry will try to stay alive as long as it can, but thanks to online news and up-to-the-minute postings online, the newspaper's days are numbered.
We've all seen CDs decrease in sales thanks to online distribution (iTunes, Amazon, etc.), so there really shouldn't be that big of an argument there.
NEW College Textbooks. Now, being a college student myself, I can definitely say that I know more people that bought their books from Amazon, or some other online used bookstore, than actually bought them at the school's bookstore.
Gas-guzzling cars should bring up no arguments. We all know the economy sucks right now, globally. There's no doubt in that. More people who buy new cars will buy the more eco-friendly, as it ends up being cheaper in the long run. Heck, Nissan just came out with their 0 emissions car, called the Leaf. People are going to be driven to it, as it runs off of renewable resources, unlike gas-guzzling cars.
That same argument can be applied to the non-energy efficient appliances. I mean, who's going to pay to have something that's expensive to upkeep, when they can get the same thing for little to no upkeep?
The only thing that I'm not 100% sure on is the home telephone service. Yes, more and more households ARE switching to their cell phones instead of 1 house phone, as it's cheaper (only 1 bill), and you don't have to wait for others to get off the phone, but I don't think that they'll drop significantly in 2010 as the article predicts. I think that time is still a year or two down the road.
