(in no particular order):
- Increase in interest in home buying, moving away from asset-less, rent/lease mentality.
- Increased package-size for FMCG products, from sachet-style to monthly-stock sizes (India-specific).
- Cost of homes goes up, due to reduced labor force in cities (India-specific).
- Internet-based classroom attendance in schools and colleges becomes a new default to plan for and execute.
- Expect digital cash to be the new default; paper cash to be the anomaly.
- Default internet speeds double (India-specific).
- Hand sanitizer and Hand wash become FMCG superstars/cash cows.
- Expect more brands in the hand sanitizer category, including Amazon Basics and Flipkart/Big Bazaar/More’s own brands (India-specific).
- Sale of laptops, home PCs and tablets pick up dramatically all over again.
- More offline bank branches shut (India-specific).
- Increase in sale of video cams (with mikes) that could be attached to smart TV to turn it into a video conferencing device.
- Pay-per-film (or pay-per-title) offer of new movies on streaming platforms/satellite TV (boxes) within 1 week of theatrical release.
- Theater tickets to be priced a LOT more (as a luxury product) due to far lesser demand.
- Home delivery of alcohol to be opened up finally (India-specific).
- Gmail adding a way to send video email – a video of you talking about what you’d have written in an email. Bells and whistles include multi-lingual subtitles.
- Gmail adding an option to call on video along with email.
- The resurgence of virtual reality all over again. The ability to visit famous locations in the world virtually (particularly for must-see venues from countries most severely affected), and virtual worlds where people meet each other frequently getting out of the ‘gaming’ world and becoming common and regular.
- The death of more and more retail outlets, all moving towards shop online, get delivered at home model.
- The rapid rise of drone-based delivery, across the world.
- Internet being declared as a basic right and essential commodity across the world, in almost every country.
- More homes being planned with a home-office that includes a dedicated video conferencing facility.
- Dramatic rise in production and sale of personal protection gear (PPE) that are purchased and used more like umbrellas.
- Ride-hailing companies redesigning their fleets to ensure a covered back cabin, away from the driver’s cabin.
- Doctors and nurses elevated to the status of soldiers and army.
- Medical science taking the aura of IT/Computing in terms of choice of education for students/children.
- Immunity will be the new medical, food, exercise and health superstar.
- Many print newspapers will finally stop the format and go completely digital. They’d also explore formats hitherto unknown, beyond ‘web’ version or epaper.
- Ebooks and Audiobooks will become the default, almost making printed books extinct.
- Many progressive countries would keep remnants of the coronavirus-led lockdown alive (Like one day a week, month, fortnight lockdown) in order to let the environment heal.
- The Western world would finally start adopting health faucets as a default.
- There’d be a new single time for the whole world, something that tried long ago (and it failed).
- Telemedicine becomes as default as searching for a nearby doctor’s or hospital’s phone number on Google.
- International air travel becomes all the more cumbersome with most flyers asked to fill multiple forms for every travel.
- Anti-viral coating is discovered and used in multiple products immediately – smartphones, clothing, door/car handles, paints, among others.
- Family activities see a massive resurgence all over again, after many years of individualistic activities. This means more family movies, family games, both board (physical and video), TV shows, among others.
- Demand for affordable large-screen TV skyrockets.
- Demand for home projectors increases significantly.
- Home salon/haircuts become highly demanded.
- New kinds of dishwashers that can help clean Indian utensils are invented/created and become highly demanded. (India-specific).
- Pop-up backgrounds for video calls are created and sold to great demand.
- Most shops and establishments retain the social (physical) distancing markings and continue to enforce it.
- Airlines, for the first time in their existence, reduce the number of seats per plane to enforce social distancing. This increases ticket prices and also legroom and personal space!
- Queues are taken seriously almost all through the world.
- Many thieves and perpetrators around the world escape getting caught by threatening to cough over their captors.
- There is an increased interest in migrating to countries that are less affected, from those that are most affected.
- Fitness trackers include more metrics by tweaking their devices, to include body temperature, blood pressure among others.
- The luxury goods industry collapses.
- India’s villages get filled back again and a new village-based economy starts to flourish.
- Some countries could merge, against the current trend of splitting.
- Research in robotics accelerates to start making available personal robots that we control from home, can go out on our behalf and get things back into homes.