Found a 1995 article saying the internet would never replace shopping malls

I was cleaning out my dad's old magazines and found a 1995 PC World article that claimed the internet was just a fad for nerds and that malls would always be where people buy stuff... It had this quote from some analyst saying 'no one will ever trust a screen with their credit card number.' Now I basically buy everything online and haven't been to a mall in like 2 years. My dad actually laughed when I showed him the article. Has anyone else dug up old predictions that aged really badly?

2 comments

2 Comments

quinn_nguyen1mo agoMost Upvoted

Right, that analyst really missed the mark on that one. My grandma found a newspaper clipping from the 80s saying the internet was just for the government and universities, like it would never be in regular homes. She also found one saying no one would pay for music online, and now she pays for a Spotify family plan. I love finding those old predictions because they remind you how fast things actually change. It makes you wonder what we are getting completely wrong about technology right now.

loganhart1mo ago

Oh, that's a good one about Grandma and the Spotify plan. It really shows how we just can't see the future, even when it's staring us in the face. I think the music thing is a perfect example because people back then couldn't imagine a world where you don't own a physical copy of an album. Now we pay for access, not ownership, and most folks don't even think twice about it. It makes you wonder what's happening right now that people are dismissing, like maybe the idea of owning a car or a house will seem just as old-fashioned in twenty years. We probably look just as silly to future generations as that analyst does to us now.