One of the aspects of the job of interaction design and strategy research is being asked the impossible task of predicting the future. It is a fool’s game, especially as the future never turns out to be anything nearly as interesting as the present.
I don’t read a lot of sci-fi for some reason, aside from the brilliantly prolific Neal Stephenson (how does he turn out those massive volumes so quickly?). But I was searching for a quote the other day and stumbled across this one from John Sladek, who I had never heard of before today, much to my loss probably.
“The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.”
It seems to sum the situation up rather well. Apart from the interweb that is - everything is free online and must be true, innit?