Current mood:	bored
Entry tags:	consumption patterns, decentralization, dvd's, freakonomics, killer ap, platform de-coupling, strike, uptake scenario, wga, writer's guild

Writers Guild Strike, and Christmas
I got DVD sets for x-mas, as I am prone to.

These are both a pleasure and a chore- since a set containing ~16 hours of video (without commercials) represents a significant time-investment to watch if I don't just want to let my life grind to a halt for 2 days and watch it all.

My first thought- since this is happening all over the country, maybe it'll distract people from the Writer's Guild strikes. (No good TV is actually an opportunity to watch the DVD-set you got!)

My second thought was- will the guild strike drive DVD-sales? An audience primed by the experience of substituting DVD's for Television in the unusual post-Christmas dry period might easily fall into the habit of substituting DVD's for TV! Everyone seems to agree it's much more enjoyable to watch a DVD set more-or-less in a run (3-4 episodes per day) instead of over the course of a season, you get more into it, see things you never would have, etc... and the experience of watching media you actually want to watch, as opposed to media you stumble upon and just find palatable enough to not change the channel and seek something better.

Could the mass-experience of regularly consuming media you actually like cause a watershed change in viewing habits? Americans leverage their time harder than any other people on Earth-- are we willing to pay to leverage our free time for maximum enjoyment and minimum commitment?

Of course, I mostly stopped watching television 7 years ago, and quit altogether 4 years ago. I'm not an independent opinion on this.

For my part- the DVD sets I got were all stuff I'd previously pirated. I'm keeping them. I asked for them because I liked them when I pirated them.

Lots of other stuff- not so much. Other stuff- I recommend to people I know would be massively into it. People who, like me, enjoy the deep-immersion method of viewing media and are willignt to pay for the privilege.

Unrelated to the above? I've spent the last 2 hours exchanging text messages with someone who's stuck on an airplane while traveling. Someone needs to get that boy a book.