The world wide web is dead. The future of the Internet is all brick and mortar.
By now, you’ve likely heard that Amazon opened its first brick and mortar bookstore in Seattle. And yesterday, news broke that they are planning a massive expansion of the concept, perhaps rolling out hundreds more retail bookstores.
My inner pundit tells me this single occurrence is the beginning of a sweeping trend. So I am predicting that 2016 is the year all the big Internet companies open up physical storefronts across the country. Everyone will be getting into the brick and mortar game.
Facebook Store
There is nothing for sale at the Facebook store but you will see everyone from your high school. Even if you’ve lived in the same city for years and never ran into these people, somehow at the Facebook store they will be there and bombard you with pictures of their babies.
Craigslist Thrift Store
In an effort to speed up expansion into brick and mortar, Craigslist will just buy the Goodwill corporation and fire all the employees while simultaneously unbranding all the storefronts. It will literally just be like walking into your neighbor’s garage with junk piled high and no rules for engaging in commerce. It will be a big hit with the hoarders.
Netflix Theaters
Similarly, Netflix will buy a major movie theater chain and quit showing any new releases, selling concessions, or displaying the show times of the content they are playing. You just walk in and sit down and jump into whatever is streaming at the moment. No one ever has to leave before the next movie starts. No one ever wakes you up if you fall asleep. And the lights never come up to remind you it is daytime.
LinkedIn Coffeeshop
This shop’s interior decoration is modeled after your typical office. There are cubicles, a couple printers (one is broken), a gross coffee maker in the corner, and, of course, not a shred of natural light. In fact, if feels just like going to work except all your disgruntled coworkers seem much more competent and attractive than they actually are.
Twitter Mini-markets
The Twitter mini-market is inexplicable. It has no point. It has no purpose. But there is always a long line of patrons waiting to get in because capacity is only 140 characters. Rimshot!
YouTube Hall of Concerts and Pranks
YouTube will take over all the music halls and concert venues around the globe and provide free entertainment to the masses. However, there is a hefty price to be paid if one wants to enjoy this perk. At any moment, you could be caught on camera being hit in the genitals, taunted because of your musculature, or have some preppy dipstick grope you or laugh at your ethnicity.
Now that you’re convinced of this trend, help me imagine more of this world devoid of online connections. What does a Google, Instagram, or Reddit brick and mortar operation look like?
TED Pub & Eatery:
TED will start a line of pubs where people will go and convince others that they are smarter than they actually are while spouting a bunch of confusing stats and things that may or may not be true. Then everyone will sit around with smug looks on their faces and pass gas and blame it on one another. Not too different from your average pub. Beers will have witty names like “hop lava” or “hoptimum”, and bartenders will be forbidden to engage in any friendly banter and instead will only test your knowledge with random trivial pursuit questions, and if you get a certain % wrong you are banished to the “website down” room, where you must listen to matchbox twenty and drink nothing but hamms on tap and wallow in self pity.
The Drifter has invited you to meet him at the Facebook Store for a game of Bejeweled Blitz.
Instagram. there will be halls of framed selfies with filters.
venmo. a bank where you can like each other’s transactions in person.
Patreon Music Sales. You pay a variable rate to pay to get in the door, once you are inside you can’t leave for six months while you wait for an album to be written, recoded, and produced. The wait is totally worth it when the low-fidelity cassette tape (billed as “retro”) is hand delivered to you by the strung-out indie rocker who cut-and-pasted the POS album together from clips of themself in the bathroom.