10-16-2009, 11:18 AM
Also, when some type of art is easily created and distributed (music, paintings, books) there ends up being mountains of the stuff and most of it either isn't to your taste or just genuinely sucks. Something really new and awesome may well be out there but finding it in the mountain of rubbish is hard.
So when you have 4 channels, you're only going to try and create shows with mass appeal. If reality shows are popular, you'll get 4 channels of reality shows. If you have 40,000 channels, there's room to try new stuff with risky appeal, but then you'll never find it.
To some extent, computers and social networking can help. I still occasionally find music, books and things to watch from Amazon or Netflix because they have so much input on what people buy or watch that they can come up with recommendations for you based on that. "You liked this and based on purchase data from around the country, you might also like this."
Pretty soon you'll be able to sit back and say, "Computer, I want to read a book about a detective who is also a wizard. Show me the top 5 by rating."
So when you have 4 channels, you're only going to try and create shows with mass appeal. If reality shows are popular, you'll get 4 channels of reality shows. If you have 40,000 channels, there's room to try new stuff with risky appeal, but then you'll never find it.
To some extent, computers and social networking can help. I still occasionally find music, books and things to watch from Amazon or Netflix because they have so much input on what people buy or watch that they can come up with recommendations for you based on that. "You liked this and based on purchase data from around the country, you might also like this."
Pretty soon you'll be able to sit back and say, "Computer, I want to read a book about a detective who is also a wizard. Show me the top 5 by rating."