The first entertainment atoms to be displaced and become bits will be those of videocassettes in the rental business, where consumers have the added inconvenience of having to return the atoms and being fined if they are forgotten under a couch ($3 billion of the $12 billion of the U.S. video rental business is said to be late fines). Other media will be come digitally driven by the combined forces of convenience, economic imperative, and deregulation. And it will happen fast.
Predictor: Negroponte, Nicholas
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “Being Digital,” Nicholas Negroponte writes:”The first entertainment atoms to be displaced and become bits will be those of videocassettes in the rental business, where consumers have the added inconvenience of having to return the atoms and being fined if they are forgotten under a couch ($3 billion of the $12 billion of the U.S. video rental business is said to be late fines). Other media will be come digitally driven by the combined forces of convenience, economic imperative, and deregulation. And it will happen fast.”
Biography:Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and a popular speaker and writer about technologies of the future, wrote one of the 1990s’ best-selling books about the new future of communications, “Being Digital.” (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: February 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: TV/Films/Video
Name of publication: Being Digital (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 1: The DNA of Information
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 13
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne