8 Industries That May Be Gone in 10 Years
Written by
G. Brian Davis
Edited by
Cynthia Measom
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In 1910, there were nearly 20 million horses in the US, per Data Paddock. That number plummeted to under 1.6 million by 1974.
Why? Because new technology — the automobile — disrupted the transportation industry. Horses became a luxury rather than a form of transportation, which bode badly for breeders and farriers but well for auto mechanics and manufacturers.
Those who don’t learn from history are fated to succumb to it, which begs the question: what industries teeter on the brink of disruption and extinction today?
1. Delivery and Taxi Drivers
Admittedly, tech companies were testing self-driving cars 15 years ago, and everyone leapt to say, “Human drivers will be obsolete by 2020!”
That didn’t happen, of course. But that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Self-driving cars continue to improve, and whether in 10 years or 20, it’s hard to imagine millions of Americans working as drivers once the safety record of self-driving cars exceeds their human counterparts.
2. Travel Agencies
Increasingly, travel agencies have become a luxury of the rich. Busy moguls simply dictate their criteria, and let an agency sort out the details.
Those bespoke travel coordinators won’t disappear, but they also won’t serve middle-class vacationers. There just isn’t the demand for it in an era where you can score the best deal yourself by hopping on Skyscanner or Airbnb.
3. Newspaper and Magazine Publishing
Likewise, printed newspapers and magazines won’t vanish entirely, but they’ll consolidate and become more niche.
Stalwarts like “The New York Times “and “The Washington Post” will likely keep printing as an exercise in prestige and nostalgia — something to place outside of posh boutique hotel room doors as “a nice touch” for the guests. Just don’t kid yourself into thinking that they’ll ever enjoy the circulation they claimed in the 20th century.
4. Coal Energy and Mining
Few industries suffer the terrible press and reputation of coal.
The US Career Institute ranks coal as the fifth fastest declining industry, surprising no one. There are just too many cleaner energy alternatives, even among fossil fuels.
5. Data Entry
In a world where nearly every point is collected digitally, and AI can collate or analyze it instantly, why would companies need to pay humans to manually enter data?
Sure, there will be exceptions, but data entry marks another low-skill industry destined for disruption and the chopping block.
6. Low-End Customer Support
Sometimes customers will need to speak with a knowledgeable human being. But as AI interfaces get smarter and more human sounding, they’ll increasingly take over the first level of interaction between humans and companies.
7. Low-End Legal Research
Artificial intelligence is also coming for white-collar workers in the law profession.
As AIs get smarter and more reliable, they’ll increasingly be able to instantly crawl legal databases and pull up case law, precedents, examples and other legal research. Research that a charismatic human attorney can use to buttress their case — without having to pay a small army of paralegals and researchers.
8. Freelance Writing
Alas, my neck also rests on the chopping block.
As a 20+ year veteran of the real estate and finance industries, publishers may still ask me for supportive quotes 10 years from now. But only the most niche industry publishers will actually pay me to write for them.
Artificial intelligence can synthesize data well, and its writing will continue to improve. But no amount of data can replace first-hand experience, and it represents a loss when most “new” content will come from recombining old content rather than teaching from lived experiences.
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