This Qwest ad is from 1999. When I first saw it I was in Junior High School. Back then I, like many, found the vision truly amazing but, comfortingly plausible. It seemed to me that this utopia would really happen because demand had so neatly lined up with the technology and the supply. However, as I write this, it is over ten years later, nearly every facet of every industry and culture has been materially and irreversibly altered by the progress the Internet Age has brought, yet this specific vision, which was once so easy to picture, still eludes us.
Why?
I think the culprit, practically speaking, is the difficulty faced by the mainstream media around clearing rights to the discreet pieces of content that comprise the eventual works we view as movies and TV shows. But this excuse is far too easy and, in my mind, a symptom of larger issues. I would argue that the real disease is media owners so afraid of change (and piracy?) that they forego promising opportunity. Happily we live within a free market system that, although bemoaned of late, eventually self-corrects. We will have this vision, probably very soon, but it will come via YouTube, Netflix, Britecove and other new ventures instead of directly from the traditional media powers for whom, apparently, a decade’s head-start just wasn’t enough.
