I have not been a subscriber to satellite TV or cable for over five years. I made the choice years ago to get rid of cable for financial reasons, and have not regretted my decision yet! The only downside to not having television programming is that I cannot always keep up when people are talking about television commercials, or the latest reality TV show. But, I have even found a solution to this.
Just because I choose not to have cable, does not mean that I don't watch my fair share to TV. I am an avid supporter of Netflix. I have an extensive list of DVDs in my queue, over 100, and have streamed my fair share in a week. I was a member of Netflix before I officially decided to give up cable, and it was one of the supporting reasons why I thought I could survive without cable. As Netflix has enhanced its streaming options, I too have streamed more programs. When it was time for me to find one of the required movie for the module 4, I quickly turned to Netflix. One thought that went through my head was, "what if Netflix doesn't have one of the movie on the list? Where am I going to turn?" Thankfully Netflix didn't let me down. So are DVD and streaming video the next Red Queen, or are they an example of increasing returns? Dr. Thornburg defined an increasing return as "two technologies that hit the market at the same time. By chance, one technology gets locked in and drives the other to extinction" (Laureate Education, 2009). By this definition, the two technologies would need to hit the market at the same time. DVDs became popular in the mid to late 1990s. Streaming video emerged ten years later. Due to the fact that they did not enter the market at the same time they are not an example of an increasing return.
Dr. Thornburg defined a Red Queen as "huge competition existing between two technologies, in the process all other competition is left behind" (Laureate Education, 2009). By this definition streaming video would need to be clearly competing with one source for DVDs. At this point in time Netflix is the leader in streaming video, but there are several other sources. iTunes is one place that you can acquire digital versions of media. Also, at this point in time there is not one source for DVDs. People are still choosing between renting them through several different companies, or to purchase them.
From my vantage point it seems that at this point in time in regards to McLuhan's tetrad, streaming video is making DVDs obsolete. Within the next five years I would predict that very few people are still watching the video entertainment on DVD, and are turning to the streaming option.
Enjoy ~SJ
