3 April 2005

Demand

A friend was fretting about the loss of her life after she had gotten cable with one of those on demand services. As if hours of channel surfing with crap is not enough, now she has to deal with the temptation of possible non-crap available at any time.

This is a thought I've been considering for a few weeks: maybe complete access would actually diminish our wasted time consuming excessive media. Part of all of that channel surfing involves the hope that something good is just about to start hurry change the channel don't miss it! It's seldom there, but we keep looking. If all content were always available, we could just go get the good stuff. Or at least we could get the stuff we're really interested in.

Of course, that ignores the fun of random discoveries. But really, how valuable or common are those discoveries to waste that much time? This argument is one of those "hey, maybe the exact opposite will happen," but I don't think it's too strained.

[ posted by sstrader on 3 April 2005 at 1:34:46 PM in Culture & Society ]