The state of affairs that is modern technology is the digital equivalent of the Garbage Patch. The Garbage Patch, that giant swirling mass of fetid, toxic, floating, rotting plastic waste bobbing in the Pacific Ocean that has everyone perplexed. What's in there? How we interact in the beginning of the 21st century with media is a roiling, confusing, sloppy mess. And Netflix is an immensely disruptive blob of digital goop in the Stew of Media. What?
Some of us pretend to be up on the latest wave of interactive communication. As well as all its cool toys and endless, hedonistic entertainment. Here in 2011, we want it all now. No, we want it yesterday. Naturally, it had better be free or damn close to free of charge. Streaming content is the Early Adapter's cheapo-equalizer now and future Joe Public's revelation. When you can pick up a 2TB external harddrive for data storage for approximately $80, the Patch is bubbling. An entire video store wall of Hollywood's magnificent creations stored in a paperback-sized box. And unlike the sentimentality attached to paper-from-tree books or the vinyl experience sleeved in foldout art, there is no reason to own or manufacture a physical DVD in an ugly plastic case. As the streaming library cloud improves, combined with high speed web access availability in 'rural' markets with fresh money, waiting on a DVD in the mail or from a Big Best Box already seems silly on a rainy day. Apple made consumers comfortable with the concept of magic music content that you don't need hold in your mitts to enjoy. Amazon's ereader market is also greasing the tracks, magic books made from ones and zeroes. Out of seemingly nowhere Netflix will grant you access to unlimited TV shows and films through a high speed internet connection. And Netflix or Amazon is going to ride this wave for around $8-12 a month verses cable and satellite TV's $60-90. Comcast is trying to convince you that cable is worth $600 more a year for the same blorp of Garbage Patch, The Biggest Loser and Deadliest Catch. This explains a panicky Comcast buying NBC Universal and its 10 million episodes of Law and Order.
Unfortunately for Netflix without consumer-demanded unique content they can be replaced in a flash, competition drives innovation, a benefit to consumers. Just bargaining for early release dates for a DVD is a desperate attempt at advantage in the Patch. In the murky muck of the internet download, the quality of the feature is not on par with the Retail Savior known as the blu-ray disc. It takes a lot of stones to attempt to convince media-saturated customers to replace all their regular boring widescreen extra features and interviews with the key grip DVDs with "way better cooler" BLU-RAY DVDs. Wait, there's more better better stuff. Blu-ray DVDs need a blu-ray player, right? How about a blu-ray player that can stream Netflix or hulu-plus?
Put on your snorkel and fins, swim for the center, the sweet spot if you will, of our Garbage Patch. Just don't swallow any of the soup. Right then. The savvy skin-diver says why bother purchasing a blu-ray player without an internet access feature? No, wait. Skip that. Just plug one's computer into one's pimped-out LED HDTV loaded with HDMI and optical and USB and every connectivity and capability ever imagined for streaming movies and Pandora music and free eBooks from one's public library, free VOIP long distance video calls, an unobtrusive antenna that gives a gorgeous crystal clear digital broadcast of the NFL, Criminal Minds and local cheesy news and weather. Total cost for an early adapter-type who keeps a 16gb flashdrive on the keyring? Not much. Fat, cheap multi-Terabyte [that's a big big bunch of gigabytes meaning a shit-ton of megabits, 2TB is about 500 to 1,000 feature films like Avatar and Toy Story.] harddrive, high speed connectivity from CLEAR [WIMAX wireless] plus a few bucks to a hulu+ or a Netflix is awesome. [Danger of drowning in technical manual-ese and the cost of psychiatric medicine is an individual's burden.] Be aware of violent outbursts from the 20% of high school dropout-Joe Blows. But Blow-With-A-Job loves all the endless entertainment and Blow writes a whole bunch of checks every month. Most likely paper checks. A small fortune for Joe who is going to be steamed when he figures he's paying out the...
Early Adapters have reached critical mass. EA's hate hate hate paying for anything. They hate paying for content like a Tea-bagger Republican hates taxes and food stamps. Hello, say there The Pirate Bay! 'My portable harddrive will hold a HALF MILLION songs? *thud* What's a bit torrent? Even Joe Blow's grandma is swimming in the free Facebook cluster-fluke. Along with those wacky kids in Tahrir Square. The DVD's impending death was announced with Blockbuster and Hollywood Video's implosions, Netflix is twisting the knife. Data floats. Is the Garbage Patch a Google underwater data farm? Can you charge a whole generation for content when it has been free for a decade? And what's to become of those who've overpaid for the same decade?
The convergent seascape of hardware and proximity of imagination and revenue enhancements is fermenting like the Patch underneath it all, and loyalty to physical media is dead as AOL in the price-based world. And it's all moving frighteningly fast for a floating partially-decomposed petroleum-based gurgling sludge in the middle of our largest ocean. It's feeding off the Weirdness Energy like that Kirk-Spock era Star Trek episode. Was it Star Trek?
Cheese is a healthy snack in these wacky times. Mmmm...cheese.
