10 Things NOT To Buy In 2010

Posted on 07 January 2010 by


While the Gear Diary team is loading us up with tons of drool-worthy items we would all LOVE to buy this year, Yahoo! Finance comes along with a list of 10 things NOT to shop for this year. These are not the typical ‘dangerous toys’ lists, but more the sort of ‘please tell me you didn’t buy a BetaMax in 1981′ sort of thing.

The article starts off this way:

Ten years ago, most homes relied on dial-up connections to access the Internet and iPods, flat-screen TVs and the Nintendo Wii didn’t exist.

In 2010, consumer should expect to see more revolutionary products supplanting old mainstays. In media, DVDs, books, newspapers and magazines will continue to lose ground to services like in-home movie rentals and gadgets like the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle. In big-ticket items, the push for energy efficiency will continue to influence consumer decisions on cars and home upgrades.

As a result, some consumer products appear poised for a dip in sales, which could be a prelude to obsolescence. Here are 10 items not to buy in 2010.

Here is the list, with my own commentary:

  • DVDs – this just as WB and Netflix strike a deal to let WB grab more sales by delaying rental availability. Yeah, DVD media are slowly dying … sort of like other disc-based media. But whereas the article quotes ‘at least $20′ as the price, most new releases seem to sell for ~$10 – 15 at major stores, which makes it an easier thing to justify. Still – with Netflix and Movies On Demand and so on, buying a DVD is become an anachronism.
  • Home Telephone Service (i.e. ‘landline’) – we still have ours, but I know many in the Gear Diary family are cell-only at this point. I think that were it not for the aggressive bundling folks like Time Warner do, even more people would sever their landline ties.
  • External Hard Drives – For some reason I would rather pull out my 500MB music backup drives when I want specific music back on my iPod rather than search for the CD and re-rip it to iTunes … but I have also had a faulty Jaz drive corrupt ALL of my disks in the past, so movie to secure online storage is truly becoming an attractive option.
  • Smartphone Also-Rans – Basically, if you aren’t an iPhone, Blackberry or Android device, nobody cares much – and recent polls showing how poorly Palm’s WebOS devices and Windows Mobile in general are doing reflect that.
  • Compact Digital Cameras – I got a waterproof digicam that has become invaluable to our family – but it cost nearly as much as the Digital SLR I had bought my wife. That reflects the article – unless there is a solid reason to buy an ultraportable digicam, go with one of the excellent D-SLRs.
  • Newspaper Subscriptions – I admit we started subscribing to our local daily newspaper – for the local news and school info. Without that we would drop it in a second – in fact, the other day I quipped to the family as I grabbed the paper “which weighs more, today’s paper or the plastic protection bag?’
  • CDs – my kids like going to the huge FYE in Rochester, but have never bought anything – and aside from a couple of wins online and gifts, I can’t recall the last time ANY of my family bought a CD.
  • New College Textbooks – considering I can recall paying more than $100 for my graduate ‘Semiconductor Physics’ book something like 25 years ago … anything to help with costs is a good thing!
  • Gas-Guzzling Cars – it amazed me how quickly we as a nation forgot about the need for fuel economy – and environmental protection – after each energy and environment crisis. Pretty shameful that anyone without a specific functional need would be driving around in a sub-10mpg heavy polluter.
  • Energy-Inefficient Homes and Appliances – I remember reading that it has gotten to the point that most appliances are becoming energy efficient enough that it will cost more to display the time on them than to actually operate them. Sadly there are plenty of loopholes in the laws to allow low-cost energy pigs to continue on store shelves.So what things would you advise NOT buying this year?Source: Yahoo! Finance
    Image: Wikimedia

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    I have loved technology for as long as I can remember - and have been a computer gamer since the PDP-10! Mobile Technology has played a major role in my life - I have used an electronic companion since the HP95LX more than 20 years ago, and have been a 'Laptop First' person since my Compaq LTE Lite 3/20 and Powerbook 170 back in 1991! As an avid gamer and gadget-junkie I was constantly asked for my opinions on new technology, which led to writing small blurbs ... and eventually becoming a reviewer many years ago. My family is my biggest priority in life, and they alternate between loving and tolerating my gaming and gadget hobbies ... but ultimately benefits from the addition of technology to our lives!

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