Holy crap, it's 2010. Twenty-ten. We can finally stop saying "two-thousand and ____."
Update: wow, it took me a long time to correct that line from "tho-thousand." I'm losing my edge.
Back to story: I, for one, am relieved.
It's been pretty popular to make lists of the best (or worst, or whatever) of the decade we just completed, but I thought I'd try to do you guys a service and lay out a few ground rules for the decade to come.
1. Piracy will become uncool.
Trendsetters in the gaming world have already moved in this direction, and the freeloading style of downloading music and movies will no longer be edgy and cool. It's a thing of the Naughty Oughties, people. A lot of this will come thanks to affordable, usable digital content. Netflix and iTunes are leading the way, and marketplace competition from big sellers like Amazon (or legit free rides like Spotify) should make things a lot more interesting. $8 for an album ain't bad. I'd rather pay $5-7, but we're getting there.
I'm not suggesting that piracy will disappear. But it will be one of the lamer corners of the Internet, like 4chan.
2. You will be nickeled and dimed to death.
Small fees for things will go completely out of control. Have you seen those commercials for Ally Bank, the bank that doesn't deal in small print? Yeah, they deal in small print. Maybe, just maybe, we'll move toward a haggling culture in response. We've already moved this way with cable and Internet providers, for example.
3. You will carry a networked device everywhere.
iPhone users, even 3GS owners who reluctantly got one with a Christmas 2009 gift card, are early adopters in terms of buying come sort of persistently handy, persistently connected device. If I had to guess, cell phones will be our social devices and tablets will be productivity machines. As a result, asking IT to troubleshoot your iPhone 4G will be considered rude, but you'll be having lots and lots of problems with your wonderful, foldable, handwriting-recognizing tablet machine of awesomeness.
4. "Baby mama" and "baby daddy" will become commonplace social entities and will no longer be considered damaged goods.
Thanks, divorce. Easily offended groups of unmarried people with babies will come up with a politically correct term for baby mama/daddy, and it will be such a stupid term that it's beyond my creative capacity to name it now.
5. Rich Americans will finally work out and eat healthily and do these correctly.
Health gurus will go upmarket, resulting in Dr. Oz-branded foods at Whole Foods. What's more, the Ugly American will now rear his head in strange new places, like Southeast Asia, when such a tourist asks if the snake he's eating was killed humanely.
6. The price of oil will rise steadily.
You'll start paying attention to those "10 things you can do to lower your energy bill" articles, and you'll end up a miserly user of energy. You may also buy a car that looks cool and goes slow, like the Ford Fiesta or whatever becomes of the Toyota FT-86.
7. Airline crashes will increase dramatically.
Fly on big planes between big cities, amigos. Regional jets will continue to be flown by exhausted, underpaid, illegally under-rested young pilots. These guys already sit on the poverty line, and they'll continue to take the brunt of cost reductions so you can still have your $99 ticket to New York. The solution is obvious, but for deregulated airline management, easier said than done.
8. Sorry about that last one. You'll have more fun this decade.
Time management and getting things done (GTD) will be a big fad in the mainstream. You'll get more chores done in your off time, leaving you more time to chill with amigos.
I'm ringing in 2010 by being exhausted. Finishing this post now, while it still gets posted as being on January 1st. Happy new year!