Imagine.
What if every single person watched what they wanted to watch? What if there were no suggestion pages? No home page with special offers. No targeted audiences.
There is only a search bar.
Type what you want and you get it, you watch it. If it’s not available, but it exists, it is acquired.
If it does not exist, it is made.
There is no cost, it is free.
There are no ads; there are no hidden algorithms,
This is the perfect product.
This is Anarchy TV.
We all know Johnny Rotten wanted to be anarchy; however, Noam Chomsky disagrees with Johnny and says that anarchy isn’t a permanent state or even an achievable thing at all. It is a tendency against unjustified rule, by which the unjustified ruler is replaced with direct participation at every level of society.
Well, social media may be free but shows are not. Friends costed a whopping ten million. These shows cost so much to make because they have potential to make exponentially more than they are worth. Yes, paying Jennifer Aniston a million dollars for a day’s work is a lot; but, if you consider that she is the main draw of a show on which companies will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to advertise every time it is broadcast all over the world, you realize it is really a small investment.
But there are no ads, no-one is paying to subscribe, so there is no revenue to pay for the shows. Also how do people know what they want? You can put genres up or work in a similar system to 8tracks; but the more labels we add, the less we are Anarchy. Creating shows and movies that people want immediately after they demand them… well… I don’t need to explain why this is an issue.
So, is it impossible? Hold on. What about a site like 123Movies (or any other free streaming site)? It has all free content, it does have pop-ups and a limited selection, but you can send in a suggestion and they will acquire it for you. But, ‘acquiring’, in this case, means stealing the film. So, it is possible, but it’s illegal. Yes. There will never be a time when broadcasting content is free; if it were, you wouldn’t be able to pay any one of the five hundred people who worked to make and broadcast any one film. The sustainability of any industry relies on people being paid for their work. The trick is to pay the industry but broadcast the content for free.
So, we’ve seen the issues connected to the idea. But let’s keep in mind that, had you asked someone in 1980 if it was possible for everyone to watch television via their computers, they would have told you that you were mad. And look now.
Edmund Braatvedt
Master in Arts and Culture Management
For the full article, see his Linkedin page!
