It’s the second day of Techland’s Festivus-inspired Airing of Grievances, in which Doug, Jared, Keith, Matt and myself share those things that have upset and irritated us throughout the year. Doug got things rolling with his gripes yesterday, and now it’s my turn to share those things that have made the last 12 months more annoying than they should’ve been.
The Lack of a True Wired World
This is potentially an odd one. While I am, in almost all respects, against the idea of the Internet as entertainment singularity with everything always available at once to everyone (mostly because I think it potentially devalues culture, but this really isn’t the place to get into that–maybe in the new year?), I nonetheless am frustrated at the fact that international television isn’t more easily available, legally, online. We were, at one point, expecting the BBC Global iPlayer to launch in 2011, and I was eagerly looking forward to it–finally, I thought, I’ll be able to watch all of the British TV shows that BBC America and PBS doesn’t bring over! Except, of course, that never happened (note to whomever is in charge of that project: Please make it happen in 2012! Pretty please?).
The Internet is filled with various paid and legal outlets in which television is available to the end user, whether it’s Netflix, Hulu, iTunes or whatever your particular favorite is, and yet broadcasters from around the world aren’t taking advantage of this in order to increase both the audience and moneymaking potential for their libraries of programming doesn’t make sense to me. Yes, I know that there are inevitably rights deals with American broadcasters and outlets already in place that keep some shows unavailable, but that’s clearly not the case for everything–so why can’t we have a BBC deal with Netflix, or Canal+ page in iTunes (and so on)? The Internet makes content global and immediate–that we’ve made it to the end of 2011 without broadcasters and distributors having realized that and moved to adapt and accelerate their releases in order to reflect that is a massive missed opportunity, and something that verges on the ridiculous.
And, no, I’m not just saying that because I’d like a legal way to watch high quality episodes of A Taste of My Life, thank you very much.
(MORE: The Airing of Grievances (Day One))
Autocorrect
Dear iOS, I can spell. Yes, sometimes my stupid fingers will hit the wrong key and, in those cases, I’m grateful for your skill in realizing that I meant “t” instead of “r,” honestly. However, if I am typing something into Google and you think that it looks a little odd, I would much rather that you gave me the benefit of the doubt instead of just replacing it with another word altogether that has very little in common with what I just typed. Don’t get me wrong, at other times I might be grateful for a magical mystery tour of the Internet, but in general, please stop it. I turned off that talking paperclip in Microsoft Word, and I will turn you off too, if I have to.