Only big companies (and hobbyists) will have desktop computers
Kinda like 40 years ago.
For everyone else, the sum totality of their Internet experience will be on their phone. This is already emerging as the de facto trend in countries like China and India. Even now, I find my wife and mother-in-law are more happy on a tablet than screwing around on a laptop.
Personally I'm okay with laptops and desktops because that's all I've built and worked with during my career (along with things like a Vax-780 or Dec-20). For most people, though, they want to get in touch with their friends (email, facebook), do online banking and stuff, look up restaurants, shop for cars, etc., and the bigger equipment is just a hassle (I know it's a hassle for me, because I end up fixing their stuff when it doesn't work for them).
For many people, over the next few decades, phones, or maybe something better (suggest we call them "Pocket Computers" keeping with the "PC" moniker) is going to be the extent of their experience.
The rest of us won't be out of jobs, but it's shifting faster than we're aware of. Just like building furniture, you used to have to hire someone high-end for the tricky stuff (back then it was animations and video, at least for me, and tricky internal stuff). Now it's like going into Wal-mart and buying something off the shelf. It's all commotidized. You used to have to hire someone like me to do this fancy shit, now it can be done for you at a fraction of the cost (a REAL fraction of the cost). May not be perfect, but for most, it's adequate.
Likewise I'm starting to come to terms that my cable TV won't be the standard any more. I'm still clinging to my land line (a rotary phone, actually, although I do have a more advanced system that plugs in), but that just may be my desire to perpetuate my childhood history. On the bright side, a wired land-line works in a power outage - not the case with my digital phone station unless I want to put UPS's everywhere.
And I was going to leave it at that, but that last paragraph made me think of Elon Musk's efforts to get batteries into every home. In such a case, things aren't going to grind to a halt when the power goes out. That's a temporary thing - may last another 20 years - but it will go away eventually.
Anyway.... silly early Monday morning thoughts.
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