https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAagtcAup0o
In this vid Zuckerberg giving an insight into Facebook's intentions for Oculus Headsets the potential of augmented glasses and no doubt contact lenses at some point.
If they can get it to work he reckons no one will have to bother buying a computer [defo plus for the environment] and related stuff anymore you'll just access it all via holograms and augmentation. Being skilled in decision making starts becoming a more prized ability than being skilled in the physical world.
Don't personally see any barriers to all this taking shape but did make me think what it would mean for domain names.
You see with what he is proposing search engines potentially will become less important, not because people won't need to search but because anyone will be able to offer searches especially the most frequent ones which are more localized.
This is currently what's happening on Instagram. Don't have any figures but when you follow someone on Instagram you can also see everything they are following and choose who you are going to follow from there as opposed to searching through the main search box. It's less taxing mentally than 'infinite choice' options which are known to be psychologically harmful.
Were things to stay as they are Domain values will continue to slide downwards but the technology coming highly suggests that things like web development will be done by AI, all your SEO etc, content auto uploaded as you go through your day no doubt, you'll get most of your recommendations off people you are familiar with which is more comforting.
Overall content itself becomes a level playing field and decentralized [early signs of that emerging] and at the point or the way I like to see it, in any case, is the only technical way you will be able to truly distinguish yourself for extra or ultimate digital kudos is your digital address. I.e. your domain name as it's the only thing they [platform provider] can't own. Seems to me in the future domain names may well be used in a completely different way to how they are thought of and used now because you can inherit a domain name whereas you can't inherit someone's FB account and people are eventually going to wake up to that.
Most people if they understood the choice would want all their life's digital efforts housed on their own domain name which they are 100% owner of to pass on to loved ones or sell to their own desires. It's the technology that isn't there at the moment but it seems to be on its way.
So overall I don't think domain prices are depressed or in a slump they are the value according to what can actually be done with them at this time. Should the technology change then domain prices could start heading north again.