It is companies that shun the PC today in order to cater to the TV, consumer electronics, and telephone industries that will end up in luxury backwaters … Just as the real action was not at Churchill Downs or the Peapack Hunt Club, but in Detroit [in the first years of the automobile], the real action today – the source of wealth and power – is not at Nintendo or Sega, Sony or QVC; it is in the scores of thousands of computer and software companies comprising the industrial fabric of the information age – the exhilarating new life after television.
Predictor: Gilder, George
Prediction, in context:In an excerpt from his 1994 book “Life After Television,” George Gilder addresses the future, criticizing the network approach that uses the ideas of television for its basis: ”It is companies that shun the PC today in order to cater to the TV, consumer electronics, and telephone industries that will end up in luxury backwaters. They will resemble companies catering to the mainframe trade early this decade, or the horse business early this century. They may find exotic or intriguing niches. But just as the real action was not at Churchill Downs or the Peapack Hunt Club, but in Detroit [in the first years of the automobile], the real action today – the source of wealth and power – is not at Nintendo or Sega, Sony or QVC; it is in the scores of thousands of computer and software companies comprising the industrial fabric of the information age – the exhilarating new life after television.”
Biography:George Gilder was a pioneer the formulation of the theory of supply-side economics. In his major book “Microcosm” (1989), he explored the quantum roots of the new electronic technologies. His book “Life After Television,” published by W.W. Norton (1992), is a prophecy of computers and telecommunications displacing the broadcast-TV empire. He followed it with another classic, “Telecosm.” (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Pipeline/Switching/Hardware
Name of publication: Life After Television
Title, headline, chapter name: Life After Television
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.moliere.byu.edu/digital/life_tv.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney