• by Philip Leigh , November 2, 2010

As William Gibson put it, "The future has already arrived; it's just not evenly distributed." Despite the undeniable logic that early adopters often lead mass-market practices, such people are too often dismissed. Perhaps it's because we sometimes have too much invested in the status quo. When that's the case, even the most accomplished among us are vulnerable because we prefer to believe what we want to believe.  

For example, in March one of the most prominent cable TV industry stock analysts scorned the threat of cord-cutting as an urban myth. Owing to his reputation, Dow Jones picked up the mantra, thereby leading some investors to an invalid assumption. Consequently, at the end of the June quarter the number of pay TV subscribers in the U.S. declined for the first time in history. Furthermore, early indications from Comcast suggest the number dropped again in the September quarter.   

While the decline in pay TV subscribers may have astonished putative experts, it was unsurprising to early adopters with computers attached to our TVs. We were already watching Internet videos on the big screen.  We had already learned that attaching a computer to a modern TV is only slightly more complicated than connecting a video game or DVD player. We already knew it is far less geeky than attaching a CATV set-top box. We learned that YouTube already has the best cultural programming. We discovered educational programming on the Net from schools like MIT and Yale that was superior to educational television. We learned, by personal experience, the validity of the long-tail theory.  

While most computer-attached-to-TV users are not ready to cut the pay TV cord, our experience led us to conclude that a significant fraction of us would. Perhaps most important, we could readily understand that emergent services like NetFlix streaming, connected TVs, TiVos, and other appliances were inevitable, would proliferate, and provide enough programming to motivate some of those users to cut cords as well. Superior intellect did not lead us to the correct conclusions. Instead it was merely immersion in the applicable experience.  

Early adopter experience is compelling. Industry observers are well advised to learn from it and ponder five implications beyond cord-cutting. First, all video will migrate to the Internet. Second, Project Canoe will fail. Third, future television commercials will be optimized with behavioral targeting. Fourth, consistent with the Internet paradigm, future sponsors will refuse to pay for TV commercials that don't get watched. Firfh, eventually consumers will settle for nothing less than unrestricted Internet access at their TVs. They shall regard a walled garden of content as indistinguishable from a walled prison.