Last Updated on February 29, 2024
Are we entering the days that science fiction has engineered? Possibly, because these changes are something, we can all expect to see in the next 10 years! They’re cool, and a little scary but there’s no doubt that they’ll affect how we do business, market, and how customers think!
1. Universal Internet – What It Is and What It Means
Remember the days when you had to unplug your phone jack and connect it to your computer and open up AOL or MSN to “connect to the internet”? We moved on, and it’s for the better because now to “connect to the internet” you need to be in a good area and open your browser. Well before 2028 rolls around, we’ll be seamlessly connected to the internet at all times. There will be no “connecting” process, and we won’t “go to the internet” to look something up, we’ll just, “look.”
For businesses and customers this is a good thing because essentially, you’ll always be open unless you only have a street side storefront. Online transactions, credit card batches, and orders will happen seamlessly.
2. Say Goodbye to Augmented and Virtual Reality Because It’s Just Reality Now
Straight out of sci-fi films, we will accept that augmented and virtual stages or reality are just part of reality. Since the craze of Pokémon Go with its augmented reality gameplay, we’ve seen leaps and bounds in quality and volume of participants with both augmented and virtual reality settings.
The Oculus Rift is now priced about the same as any gaming console and making its way into many homes. Give it 10 years and the lines between virtual and everything else will begin to blur.
3. We Will Lose Jobs to Machines and The Internet
Any SEO consultant firm will tell you that you need a person to write your content, and that may remain true. But what you won’t need in the future is someone to edit, curate, and distribute your content. While we already see applications such as Buffer distribute content on a schedule, the future holds something a little more custom and a little more intuitive.
SEO plugin developers now are working on plugins that will edit content and optimize it for SEO purposes. Will this replace a real person by 2028? It might, but we’ve seen from today’s current “AI Writers” that computers are great at nonsense but garbage at writing.
For example, you can check out the sixth installment to the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) franchise, or The Winds of Winter, written by a computer. It’s hilarious and can make some of us feel better about knowing we will have jobs in the next ten years. Editors, webmasters, and even online security jobs are at risk though.
4. Education Will Be Available to Anyone
Although YouTube academy is great for everything from learning how to wire an outlet in your home to do your makeup, we’re talking something a little deeper.
Thanks to companies such as the Great Courses Plus there are courses taught by elite college professors are now available to anyone with an internet connection. But as we mentioned earlier, that’s coming to an end, and soon these companies are going to lose out on an audience as more and more information and education become free.
Free education is a reality that is not far away. The difference is that it won’t be the government offering it. What this means for businesses is that everyone will need to be much more honest and forthcoming with what information they have. It will be better for everyone to share information, so the general public can make an informed decision, whatever the topic. We can say that this prediction stems from the original purpose of the internet as a fact sharing resource.
5. More and Less Connection
While many people enjoy the communities online and the benefits of staying connected without having to leave your home, this method of engagement will likely shatter. As any community ages, it will fragment into smaller and more niche centered communities which are happening on the internet today.
There are forum groups, online resource sites and even Reddit that welcome everyone but are actually quite close-knit. In the future, there will be a niche and site for everything, where we’ll be connected all the time seamlessly, but only interacting with our most specific interests in mind.