Recently I was listening to an Economist podcast (embedded below) where the discussion centered on where things would stand 25 years from now. When talking about what types of things would and would not exist 25 years from now the gentleman speaking said he was certain that books would exist but many current high tech products would not exist.

I started thinking about that and it makes a lot of sense. As much as we talk about new technologies killing old technologies the reason older technologies got that old is because they persisted even as new technologies threatened their popularity. I'm sure that people read many more books prior to radio and television. Many years after those innovations books are still here. It's an interesting discussion to have in a world where e-books are gaining popularity due to products like the Kindle and iPad. Will those innovations ultimately be the end of printed books? Or will books persist while a newer technology displaces tablets and e-book readers? You could fill an evening debating that topic.

I was thinking about this today as I boxed up some "old" 200 gigabyte external hard drives to send off for recycling. i would have sold them but the cost to ship the hard drives was about the same as what they're worth these days. A few years ago I couldn't imagine a 200 gig hard drive being worth only a few dollars. But that's the case now because you can buy a 1 terabyte hard drive for less than $100. Hard drives are getting huge in storage size now but even as that happens solid state storage is slowly gaining momentum. Yes, those spinning disks will be threatened with extinction one day due to storage on computer chips that is faster and consumes less power. So high technology tends to replace itself much more than it replaces very low tech products.

I believe that the trend of high technology replacing high technology will continue. High tech items tend to be cold and impersonal items. My iPad is awesome but when a new model comes along I'll sell this one or pass it on to a family member in favor of the new technology. Meanwhile I haven't considered giving away my favorite books in favor of Kindle editions. There's something about the feel and smell of a book that can't be replaced by technology. That's just one example. Look at the nostalgia surrounding vinyl LP records. A Beatles original LP in mint condition (decidedly analog technology) will probably soon be worth more than a 1st generation iPad (decidedly very high digital technology).

I have seen and heard many discussions about new media killing old media. I used to think that newspapers, for example, would eventually be killed off by blogs and other web based media. While I have no doubt that new media has lead to the decline of newspapers I think there will always be a place for low tech media. Meanwhile newer services and technologies (Twitter? Facebook?) will likely take down blogs before blogs take down newspapers. And so it goes folks.