
TV, retail, advertising and cascading collapses - kawera
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2018/1/15/tv-retail-advertising-and-cascading-collapses
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djsumdog
The thing that bothers me, about the retail space at least, is the increasing
amount of waste and the increasing amount of consumerism.

Many people buy PC components from Newegg or household goods from Amazon when
they might be an entire $5 more at a retail store. The retails store version
you can actually see and touch (more important for a bathmat, less important
for a video card) and they're shipping in packages of 100 or 500. Stores
typically do recycle all their cardboard.

You buy it on-line, and it comes in a box. And those boxes add up, and many of
them don't get reused or recycled depending on what part of the world you live
in.

Amazon pushes people to buy more through their ecosystem. We're buying more
stuff we don't need than ever, and generating more waste than ever. Their dash
button felt like the ultimate consumption waste tool. Amazon is pushing us
into a world where we are continually buying.

I'd rather we live in a world where we buy more are, fewer goods (with what we
do buy being more expensive but durable). What a great world if our cellphones
and devices lasted 8 years instead of 2. A world where we could buy
independent games and media and know the creators got a full 85%~90% like with
Bandcamp instead of the current bullshit 66% they get from
Apple/Google/Amazon/Steam/Gog.

A world where we spend less on goods and the goods last longer; a world that
lets us spend more on art, could greatly reduce our overall pollution (not
just the symbolic and useless measure of carbon) and could help create a more
Army of Davids type world where people can legitimately live off their art.

~~~
mprovost
Even if the stores are more efficient with packaging/recycling, consumers
still have to go to the store. What is the carbon footprint of 500 people
driving to the store and back vs a UPS truck delivering 500 individual
cardboard boxes? I don't know but I suspect that UPS is going to be smaller.

~~~
twobyfour
If you're walking to the store because you live in a walkable neighborhood,
it's zero. If you're going to the mall and buying a dozen things from a dozen
stores, the carbon footprint per purchase is probably lower than if you're
buying a dozen things in a half dozen separate transactions online. Not to
mention all the boxes and the energy and/or trees needed to produce/recycle
them.

~~~
Spivak
"As long as you live in an atypical situation where all your material needs
are within 15min walking distance from your residence and you're affluent
enough to not notice retail markup the issue you bring up isn't a problem."

~~~
acabal
I think that says more about the sad state of the living situation we
Americans have engineered ourselves into over a few generations, with suburban
sprawl and car culture, more than anything. If we think about it even just a
tiny bit, it seems absurd that the majority of our society has little choice
_but_ to live in a situation where most of our material needs _aren 't_ a 15
minute walking distance away.

~~~
majormajor
Replace "engineered ourselves into" with "chosen to" and you will realize the
actual problem facing anyone who dislikes cars.

If you want to get rid of personal point-to-point tranportation tech, you have
to provide something more convenient or get more coercive than most of the
country has the political will for. Walking in winter cold or summer heat
simply isn't that for most people. People enjoy privacy, people enjoy personal
space, people enjoy their own music and conversation, etc.

It's similar to how you won't roll back the clock on iPhones and Facebook
simply by posting nostalgic articles for the way things used to be. You have
to address the added utility that has caused the adoption.

~~~
ItsDeathball
iPhones and Facebook, for all their issues, were adopted by the masses by
competing in an open market.

Mass motorization and suburbanization were driven by government policy and
still are. For every consumer dollar spent on driving, the government spends
ten (wish I could cite this, but I can't find it at the moment).

I'm not saying cars aren't appealing, or that they don't have utility, just
that the situation most Americans find themselves in, where the built
environment favors cars to the exclusion of all other modes of transportation,
is the result of public policy interacting with (or distorting) markets rather
than a pure expression of individual preference.

~~~
DougN7
I totally disagree. I personally don’t like cities, congestion and apartments.
I would pay more to stay in my home with a yard. Most home owners aren’t in
homes because of lower costs - this meets our living style priorities best.

------
gwbas1c
Regarding what people spend money on, I notice that with clothes. I saw a
1980s Mr. Roger's show yesterday and noticed that a middle-aged man wore a
full suit to take his kids to a museum. Today most men don't spend that kind
of money on clothes, but we all buy phones and telecom services. Most days I
wear cheap jeans and t-shirts, but in another era I'd spend a lot more money
on my clothes.

I suspect that advertising will get stronger and stronger pushback. With so
many options for entertainment and news delivery, I just don't consume
anything that mandates ads. (IE, if the BBC or CNN force me to watch a 30
second ad I just ignore the video, if a website blocks my ad blocker I don't
read the site.)

~~~
soared
So you don't use broadcast tv, radio, most free apps, any road with
signs/billboards, etc.? Advertising is in more places than you think.

~~~
wincy
Not OP, but I sold my TV, stopped listening to all radio (including NPR),
deleted Facebook, and the city I live in banned billboards from the main
highway. So it is possible, just takes being willing to really go against the
grain. I send friends emails or text messages and connect with new people via
Meetup, which I pay for.

A bad side effect of this is that when I do hear ads or see a TV it's really,
really difficult to filter it out.

~~~
CDotDot
> A bad side effect of this is that when I do hear ads or see a TV it's
> really, really difficult to filter it out.

That brings to the forefront a feeling that I have noticed in the back of my
mind recently: I notice ads that many people don't since I've tried to de-
advertise my content consumption. Hulu/Spotify ads breaking up episodes/songs
annoy me more than ever, perhaps increasing this cascading failure that the
article features.

------
petepete
It's unsurprising that TV's being hit where it hurts. Even when I (rarely)
watch things with ads I go out of my way to be able to fast-forward them.

The last thing I watched 'weekly' was Game of Thrones which in the UK is
broadcast on Sky Atlantic. I just record the show when it's aired overnight
(simultaneously with the US) and fast forward them at ×30.

If I decide ad hoc to watch a programme now on a commercial channel I just
pause it while I make a cup of tea or whatever, giving me enough time to skip
the ads. It's a no-brainer.

It was funny when Pru Leith suggested her viewers should do the same[0]

[0] [http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-08-22/worried-about-
the-...](http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-08-22/worried-about-the-ads-in-
the-great-british-bake-off-press-fast-forward-says-prue-leith/)

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
The radio times has an anti-adblocker modal over this article. The irony is
palpable.

~~~
lakechfoma
I'm not getting that, what are you using? I'm using uBlock Origin. I wonder
how those work, if they detect extensions or what

------
ghaff
With TV, I suspect we're seeing inertia or path dependence starting to break
down in large numbers.

A lot of people did/do watch TV linearly out of habit. Plop themselves down on
the couch and watch.

Would they have started doing that if they had a lot of other options? Maybe
in some cases. (Don't underestimate the desire of some people to have
something on in the background.) But probably a lot fewer.

Something similar applies to a cable bundle. I lot of people have it. It's
probably the easiest way to watch live sports. It may also be bundled in with
other services they use. Etc. Canceling probably means changing some habits
and losing access to at least some content. But they wouldn't necessarily have
called up Comcast or DirecTV and initiated a subscription if they didn't
already have one.

~~~
koolba
> A lot of people did/do watch TV linearly out of habit. Plop themselves down
> on the couch and watch.

I'm in this category. I've got a bunch of streaming subscriptions yet I
usually end up channel surfing regular TV.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's laziness (i.e. let them decide
what I watch, I don't want to pick). Maybe it's the convenience of the
interface (it just works, no connecting, changing channels is near instant,
etc). Maybe a combo of all of those.

~~~
freehunter
I've never found value in TV (cable or otherwise) because it seems to be
mostly ads these days, but I do a very similar thing in the car. I subscribe
to SiriusXM radio (because most channels are commercial-free while FM radio
around me is loaded with more ads than music). I have a music streaming
service and music on my phone I can pick from, but more often than not I don't
want to pick my music. Especially while I'm driving. So I turn on a station I
like and can listen ad-free. And if I flip to another station, it's highly
likely I'm flipping to another song being played, not to another ad being
played like FM radio or TV.

If cable TV could be commercial-free like satellite radio, I might be a
subscriber. It's the same reason I cancelled my NYT.com subscription: I don't
like paying for the privilege of watching advertisements. If I'm paying you
money, I'd better get an ad-free experience. If my monthly fee doesn't cover
the cost of replacing ads, then you're not charging me enough.

Maybe Netflix should set up channels where they just play shows back to back
like cable TV does.

~~~
ghaff
>Maybe Netflix should set up channels where they just play shows back to back
like cable TV does.

Someone brought this up a few weeks ago but it's not really a good fit with
Netflix' cost model. They really don't want to be paying content providers for
an always on background stream when no one may even be watching. Of course,
Spotify does but I suspect the numbers are a lot different. Perhaps there's
enough really cheap content they could do this with.

~~~
freehunter
That's a good point, but if it was limited to just Netflix's own content
(depending on how they own/license their own content), it shouldn't be too
much additional cost, right? Basically the cost of the bandwidth, but maybe
lower the stream quality on their channel.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, if they had royalty free content. Though most of what's in their catalog
doesn't really qualify as "play in the background" sort of stuff which was
what was being discussed upthread.

The general concept would probably be interesting for a lot of people if the
numbers worked.

~~~
koolba
Yes what I really want is something like Pluto TV but with a better content
selection.

------
walterbell
Amazon reviews allow consumer brands (e.g. Anker) to be built without Procter
& Gamble's style of packaged goods advertising.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/technology/cheap-
consumer...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/technology/cheap-consumer-
devices-amazon.html)

------
brndnmtthws
I hope this also means the end of shitty, wasteful blister/clamshell
packaging. It's about time we use materials that decompose, occupy less
volume, and don't damage my hands when opening them.

~~~
djsumdog
Now we get everything is a huge, wasteful, cardboard box. My flatmate recently
ordered sponges from Amazon. A fucking cardboard box for something that you
could buy at Wal-Greens for the same price, and where hundreds of them are
shipped per box.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
Waste is waste but at least cardboard is sourced from renewable tree farms and
when it's dumped in a landfill it is sequestering carbon.

~~~
graphitezepp
People worrying about paper waste has become a pet peeve of mine. Get your
plastic use down first please.

------
jacksmith21006
Google reported that there is over 1.5 billion hours consumed on average per
day on YouTube. That is about 10 minutes per person on the planet.

Now that is a crazy amount but what is more amazing is how fast it is growing
as it is growing at over 50% per year. That is more hours than all of linear
TV in the US combined. But then Google has the ability to target ads and
therefore have less than linear TV. It is just hard to see how linear TV will
be able to compete if they are going g to continue to have 14 minutes of ads
per hour of TV.

My kids are growing up without ads or far less than I did and there is little
chance they would except 1/4 of viewing time being ads.

------
tarr11
_Really, whenever you change the channel, buying patterns change - people do
not buy the same in malls as in department stores, nor in department stores as
in small shops, and so people do not buy exactly the same things online as
they do in supermarkets or malls. The channel shapes what is bought._

Most shopping online still has an implicit power-law dynamic because of its
two-dimensional layout, where being "above-the-fold" or "top of the list"
garners the majority of customer attention (and therefore sales).

------
soared
So what is the author trying to say? This post seems pretty incoherent. I
don't understand the point, and he just flip flops through topics without
connecting the dots. Also not a fan of this writing style..

> This ought probably to mean

> Meanwhile, the same applies somewhat even

> accelerating and interlocking ... discontinuous and cascading

