While reading the dust jacket of a book I saw at a garage sale the other day I was reminded that the idea of freedom cannot be wholly secured through either the working for monetary gain or even methodical trading of goods regardless of the systemic procedures which are supportive of the (boing boing) overt rewards of having enjoined in the available rewards system or even abstaining from participating in the cultural or monetary leitmotif which rose to prominence under the industrialists of the Industrial Age, such as J. Paul Getty or Morgan Family. I really should have bought the book but they wanted $4 for it and that’s way too much for a book at a garage sale, unless it’s signed.

I will say that I’m a bit perturbed that neither you nor the writer you discuss have examined the British Stationer’s Licensing Act which John Milton railed against in his “Areopagitica” which, we are told, led to the so-called ‘free press’ that is so casually enjoyed in the modern era. But then I haven’t read the book you’re discussing and, to be truthful, I’ve only skimmed over your article but I hope you will consider my points.

Thank you.

Reading reflection:
http://nerdacumen.com/reading-reflections-the-ethics-of-the-future/2009/02/21/

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/converterbox_vcr.html

Answer:
* VCRs will stay afloat as long as they can – personal connections with collection
* It’s not about the VCR as a recording device – playback is not affected
* Extremely sharp decline in VCR usage in next 5 years

Concepts:
* Adoption rate – 72% may have them, but how many are actually recording
* Overshot – technology is beyond a portion of the population – energy required
* Digital transition is an accelerator
* VCR is a sustaining innovation – businesses no longer interested in VCR technology because digital trumps analog. Last innovation: VCR player/DVD recorder … VCR/BlueRay
* Companies innovate faster than customers lives change
* As a recording technology – VCRs disruptive and so is live-streamed video
* Overshooting customers + VCRs mostly playback – there will be a market for cheap playback for when the current VCR dies [Note example: machine for rewinding]
* Converter box is a suppressant – so is change in conversion date
* Resistance to DVD/BR because of cost
* VCR not sustaining technology – like Polaroid cameras
* Rogers – steps of adoption – the late adopters are being forced, not a choice
* Suppressant – hard to figure out how to make it work
* Online TV shows is disruptive to the VCR
* Trial process & feedback process not provided

From memory …. thinking of newspapers as a “bundled product” — what are accelerators & suppressants (brakes) that lead to unbundling?

Accelerators
* The inherent nature of digital media to be broken into components
* Human desire for information
* Government doing nothing to preserve status quo
* RSS/aggregators/Twitter and other technologies that make it easy to consume in “bites”
* Search
* Cheap tools to produce and publish enables “citizen journalism”
* Citizen adoption of internet as fundamental communications tool

Brakes
* Government if it choses to publicly finance newspapers
* Human resistance to change
* DRM/subscription-only access
* Newspaper adoption (co-opting) of social network technologies
* Lack of network neutrality – if some bits are privileged over other bits – would help any organization whose bits are privileged
* Citizen rejection of internet as fundamental communications tool