Predictions are fun! Here's hoping I come back to read this in 2030.

1. There will be a breakthrough in VR gaming. Kits with similar features to today's most expensive will start going on offer for prices lower than or comparable to consoles, and new high-end kits will offer full motion tracking without needing treadmills or the like. VR cafes, similar to the Internet cafes of old, will become a mainstream choice for entertainment, especially for teenagers and young adults. Half-Life: Alyx will be a major contributor in establishing industry conventions that other developers will build upon.

2. Piracy will drastically increase for video content following the fragmentation of streaming services. A subscription to have access to all streaming services will appear, and we'll have completed the loop back to cable television.

3. Electronic voting will be adopted in a few more countries. One will have an election hacked, resulting in a different party being elected than the one people actually voted for. A major scandal following that will halt the trend.

4. Web development will continue to remain highly fragmented. There will be fewer and fewer individuals that understand all the layers of applications due to continually exploding complexity. Containerization will be taught as a core competency in any development course. Firefox will gain 10% of market share, but Chromium-based browsers will remain king. JS will lose market share but will remain at the top.

5. There will be a rising trend in using neural networks to prepare APIs and interfaces for the most common app types, and it's going to be advertised as magic. It will result in a decrease in entry-level freelancing jobs, and a decrease in the revenue of companies based on providing no-code websites - unless they're the ones that offer the service.

6. A new standard for designing apps will appear from one of the tech giants and be adopted into the mainstream after 2 or 3 years, similar to Material.

7. There will be a massive push in many major cities to discourage personal vehicle ownership, proposing the use of public transportation or bikes/electric scooters instead. Part of the push will be in decommissioning lanes, the other in taxes.

8. Gen Z will turn out as a generation of extremes. To the surprise of many, tech illiteracy will be a serious problem.

9. There's going to be a global scare due to a superbug, i.e. a virus that is resistant to antibiotics. It may get as far as having border lockdowns.

10. China will continue its rise to power, and individual freedoms will continue to decrease. On a related note, Hong Kong will be subdued in a subtle manner, and a history rewrite will be attempted.

11. There will be an economic recession within three years. Many companies will feel the effects on their bottom line from decreased sales and will try to automate entry-level positions in response.

12. Mirroring what another poster said in this thread, deepfakes will become so commonplace that only lived experiences will remain fully credible; and yes, there will be an industry based around trying to sell content as being fully unedited.

13. Open offices will finally start fading out, remote work will become more mainstream. Despite experiments in several countries, the 8-hour workday will remain the norm.

14. Again mirroring other posters in this thread, crypto won't have a massive breakout, though it will continue to rise in popularity. Investors will start wincing when they hear about crypto startups, the already established ones will start seeing some mainstream use.

15. And the one I'm most sure about: we'll still be playing videos using VLC in 2030.