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in postage and delivery to individual homes and businesses are enormous.

In the years to follow, I would also venture to predict that most magazines will either completely switch over to Internet subscriptions, or at the very least; offer this option. I will even go on to boldly proclaim that websites such as Helium (the one we're on right now) will become the wave of the future for freelance writers. Hundreds of thousands of publications seeking specific material can simply browse the landscape of cyberspace without the hassles of query letters, agents, and the like. Physical books of every genre will survive, but in similar fashion, I believe paper manuscripts will become as extinct as the wooly mammoth.

Let's get something straight here. The written word will never die. But with the onset of the Internet, the manner in which we receive it will change. In the newspaper business, reporters, writers, and customer service reps will still be in demand. As for delivery people and those who run the machines, I predict that these positions will be all but gone by 2020.

Yet this poses a question. Since newspapers would eliminate; well, paper, such a business couldn't be called a newspaper anymore, could it? How about a news service? We'll wait and see.

Learn more about this author, Patrick Sills.
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