The title of this article is “10 Things Not To Buy in 2010″. The article is here. Although the author only listed 8 items instead of 10, I thought I would offer my commentary on these eight things you shouldn’t buy in 2010, since the people at Smart Money say so.
DVDs. The author says to save the $20 of a retail DVD in favor of the $5 – $7 online rental. But, I’ll continue to buy the DVD just to have my own personal hard copy of the movie. Once the online rental is over, you can’t watch the movie again (unless you recorded it on DVDr – piracy) or rent it again.
Home Telephone Service. The author believes with the penetration of cell phones and the Magic Jack, land line based home phone service is going the way of the rotary phone. I agree. I’ve been wanting to cut the land line phone since we all have personal cell phones now. What’s the point in duplicating the service?
External Hard Drives. The author believes that services like Carbonite and other online backup services and space providers are better than an external hard driver. I’m not so sure, since the online service are ethereal and could evaporate instantly whereas the external hard drive is ‘real’. I would suggest doing both to back up critical data.
Smartphones also rans. The author believes that anything other than the Iphone or Blackberry is useless since application developers will target their efforts to the greatest market, which is the Iphone and Blackberry. Since I don’t have a smart phone and don’t want one, who cares! But if I was in the market for a smartphone, I would buy an Iphone.
Compact Digital Cameras. The author says that people will understand that the Nikon D40 and other D-SLRs are better at taking pictures than those compact digital cameras. Therefore the consumer will buy the higher priced and less user friendly D-SLRs just to get better pictures. If I wasn’t a photo bug and in the market for a Nikon D-300, I would buy a compact digital camera just because of the size and ease of use.
New College Textbooks. The authors says that its pointless to buy a new textbook when there are used textbooks and digital copies available at lower cost. And I would agree. I spent why too much money on new text books at Ball State University in the mid ’80′s. When my kids get to college, they will buy used or digital.
Gas-Guzzling Cars. The author believes that high gas prices and federal regulations are the reason why the auto sector is moving toward marketing fuel efficient cars. So, logic would say, eventually you would not be able to buy a gas guzzling car because there won’t be any ‘new’ ones on the market. While I believe in conservation, I don’t believe in the hyper-green movement. If I want to buy 40 gallons of $3.50 gas to fill my gas guzzling SUV, what business is that of the government?
Newspaper Subscriptions. The author believes that E-readers will move the ink and paper of the tabloids and newspapers to pixels and electrons. I agree. I would rather read the paper online than turn the actual page. Since I have an Ipod, I would be more inclined to read a novel on the Ipod than a hard cover. Amazing how things have changed!
