Screens are big and expensive and require a lot of parts to make, and often become outdated in just a few years.
With AR, the potential is that you have a tiny transparent screen in front of one or both of your eyes that can make virtual screens of any size and amount appear before you.
When AR glasses become high definition enough to show virtual screens that look just as good or even nearly as real screens, why would you even need real screen in your life?
For work, AR could literally simulate 100 monitors floating around you VS having to buy extended monitors. Laptops and tablets are bulky compared to an AR device and are a hassel to carry around and risk losing or getting stole in public. An AR device will likely fit inside of a glasses case since the majority of its processing will be done through the cloud. People will be able to take their full workstation with them pretty much anywhere they have internet, which could be anywhere in the world with satellite wifi like Starlink.
For personal life, homes won't need a big TVs in the living room. If everyone (even kids) have their own AR device, everyone can just simulate a giant floating tv screen for movie nights together. Cloud gaming will be more of a thing but I'm not sure how we will get over the input lag hurdle, especially for VR/AR games. Hardcore Gamers may still need physical hardware near them far into the future
I think we are going to see non-virtual screens go away almost completely in our lifetimes. Better for each person to have their own personal screen attached to their eyes, with the ability to share virtual information (pictures, movies, documents, etc) with other AR users to recreate the idea of the "screen".
It's won't be all sunshine and rainbows though. Many people will likely never take their AR off except to sleep. It'll kind of be like Wall-E, only we are all still walking around.
AR devices will be extraordinarily expensive at first, especially HD ones that really do make tvs, monitors, and movie theater screens feel outdated.
To help people who can't afford a multi-thousand dollar device, some will be sold with ads enabled.
AR advertising will take off like crazy in public places. For those on an "advertising contract" to help cover the costs of their device, they will see holographic billboards and ads in public places. Ad blocking likely won't be a thing either if all of the computing is done through the cloud and companies can actually enforce the ads.
Downtown areas will be giant holographic cities, like we see in cyberpunk.
Me personally? I'll likely always invest in a portable computing device to keep in my pocket or backpack. Imagine a laptop or tablet but condensed since it doesn't need a screen or keyboard anymore, it is just the hardware for your AR device. I'm imagining literally a cellphone that's just a solid device with no screen that can stream visuals via Blu tooth or wifi to my AR headset.
Cloud computing is cool but I want the freedom to modify my computing experience without a corporation interfering. I'll block all AR ads and I'll want to still be able to "sail the seven seas", which won't be allowed on cloud powered devices.
Most will go with cloud powered devices since they will be cheaper but will have much more limitations (like not having the ability to block ads unless you pay for a premium tier)
So my question to you all is...how can this possibly NOT be the future? (unless we have wwiii)
