The nice thing about "in the future" kind of statements is that they are impossible to disprove - especially when it is not specified how far in the future we are talking about. However, I think we are a long way from having gasoline delivered to your door and I always need to pop out for eggs, bread and milk. I also might need a hair cut in the future. Clothes are unlikely to be optional. My wife and I like to go to the movies. The kids like all kinds of shops...
Sure, the internet is affecting retail sales and education. To what extent is very difficult to predict but it is unlikely to be as drastic as the OP suggests.
edit: I did get my replacement iPhone 4gs at the Apple store, but I got my first iPhone 4gs line despite walking past the place several times a week.
PS: I expect something like a 30% reduction in retail store sales in the next 20 years, that may or may not be huge, but it is significant.
We don't just keep jobs because we need them. We also keep them because we need the distribution of wealth that they make possible --without a way to ensure that, everything collapses. There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slaves.
Except for where there can. Economic productivity is nowhere close to decoupling from population mass yet, but when it does, you won't need low or semi-skilled workers.
There is a careful calculus happening at every level comparing the productivity of a human versus machines (and other humans). To deny that competitive spirit, à la Greece or Italia, builds systematic inefficiencies into the economy.
At a certain point there won't be a place in the world for unskilled humans - they will be un-differentiable from a defective tool.
TL;DR This may be a problem, but will be un-avoidable. Social structures, demographics, or both will have to adapt to new realities of productivity.
Universities aren't going away. At most, some programs may become "virtualized" but even then there's a lot of value add with college. They have specialized libraries and librarians to help you find information that may not be on the internet. They can afford expensive equipment and the people to take care of them. It's often useful just to be around people in your same program to talk about projects and learn from each other. It may not be $100k value add, but that just means college will get less expensive and possibly shrink, not that it will go away all together.
It's good to be able to concentrate alone, AND it's good to be able to collaborate in person.
We have GitHub (social coding!) and now MITx (social learning?) I like the idea. It's like the whole point of the Internet -- bringing people together -- has reached brick and mortar.
I'm going to hire the employee who i believe will work with me better, and who will produce a higher quality product. I don't care which school he/she went to.
I wonder if there are companies out there working on innovative ways to fill this space. After all, not _everything_ will be a coffee shop...right?
This could turn out to be true, i just hope that as paper books turn into history, we dont lose the quality associated with something going into print. The process of having enough confidence to "Print it" is pretty intense, and therefore the quality of a printed book v's any e-book or website will not match up without a significant amount of effort (which i suspect for business reasons wont get as much attention, because for business reasons you dont want to screw up a paper book)
Its an interesting concept, i think we're just not there yet. People like paper books, the only way they'll go away is if they become unaffordable or just stop being produced (in which case i'm starting a publishing company focusing on paper books!)
This is something by people in educational economics. While I think the author has a great point that we're looking to get workers who can get the job done, that isn't necessarily how businesses hire. The benefits from education don't just come in the form of increased human capital. Basically, you get bonus points for having the degree regardless of what it means to your human capital (there's a term for it that I can't come up with right now).
For a long time, we've heard of jobs that don't need a college degree, but that you won't get hired for without it. In fact, that's the reasoning behind getting a college degree in many majors where one doesn't have the intention of working in that area.
College is also a place where people get sorted into social groups according to smartness - social groupings that can continue well past college. After college, you meet friends of friends you had in college who also went to schools similar to your own and you get to build a network of people like you somewhat regardless of your success in life.
Finally, the appeal of letters is great. If you're "John Smith, BS", you will always be that. You will get the respect of being a college grad for the rest of your life. In a world where things seem in flux, items that we place undue weight on are comforting. Heck, the same can be said of going to a good school. If you went to Harvard, you will always have gone to Harvard - something very few people can say. No matter how much you fail at life in the future, you have proven that you're the top by having gone there.
Getting a certificate of completion from MITx isn't the same for many of these things. The fact that there aren't entrance requirements or limitations means that it isn't a certification that you're the top rung of society - just that you've learned some knowledge. Because it's so broadly available, it isn't sorting you into a social grouping. If universities are for knowledge transmission, the author is right - that these new offerings are wonderful. While maybe they should be for that purpose, I think that universities play a broader role in our society (I'm not saying it's a good or desirable role, just a role). They prove to others that I was accepted as not just someone they could transmit knowledge to, but a really smart person well above what would be needed to pass the courses. They connect me to other smart people who will become my social group as well as professional networking group. They make sure that no matter what I do in the future, I've proven that I'm one of the smart ones - one of the elite. My neighbor with a high-school diploma may make millions as a real-estate agent, but I'm a college grad! I can still feel proud (and maybe a little smug) because someone has certified that I'm part of the top of society - and no one has done that for him!
I believe it's called signaling.
Something akin to a formal book club with paid/volunteer instruction. I'm thinking about events like, "MyAwesomeEduStartup sponsors instructor [someone]'s coverage of [some MIT xCourse]."
It would definitely be cool as a community service or meetup event. I think it would be hard to get people to pay for this just yet, but maybe in the near future.
Google tried to challenge this model. This has nothing to do with whether people buy from brick and mortar stores or online.
I bought my phone online disentangled:
http://www.clove.co.uk/
http://www.virginmobile.com.au/shop
Actually it's the inverse. The student debt accumulated will make the college graduate more desperate to accept any wage offer, and more fearful of keeping the job once there.
People hiring love this kind of dependance.
There is also something to be said for a self-starter who drives himself through an online programme and comes out with a working understanding of a topic.
I only get to spend about 3 or 4 hours / week in cafes these days (I have an office job) but those are some of the best work hours I get. I wish I could transition full-time to coffeeshops, and if I get a startup going I might try it.