The year is almost over. Old technologies can take longer to die and the timing is unpredictable, according to an article in the Lex column of FTWeekend 15/16 December 2018.

Sony announced that it was stopping production of Betamax tapes in 2015, for example, more than 50 years after it lost a format war with VHS.

Most investors and business academics expect technologies to decline steeply. CDs are good examples. Sales have dropped by 92 per cent since a 2000 peak in the US, though they still dominate in Japan, where streaming has been slow to take off. In the UK only two out of five people regularly buy new ones. In Malaysia CD stores are closing down, given that Spotfiy is free for listeners of songs., including my wife.

But old formats put up a better fight than expected. This creates opportunities and pitfalls for investors. Sales of ebooks, once predicted to overtake printed books, have fallen since 2014. Now the small but fast-growing audio download is worrying publishers.

New technology -cloud services-threatens to make game consoles redundant. But sales of console games are still growing strongly and 5G may support them. Even retro consoles are in vogue. Sony has followed Nntendo in bringing back a 24-year-old machine in miniature.

Affection for timeworn technology can be dismal. A YouGov poll found many British CD listeners felt left out as new song releases bypassed the medium. However, the auditory and tactile pleasures of vinyl have sparked a revival. LP sales in the US more than quadrupled to nearly US$400 million in the seven years to 2017, according to trade body RIAA. Unlike old soldiers, some old technologies neither die nor fade away.