My, How Technology Advances...

So, it's been over a year since I put my first post on here. I feel as though so much has changed in my life and technology, yet the themes have remained the same. It has always been about the expression of information and the movement and access of that information. For the lowly blogger/consumer, it becomes a conversation on the consumption of media.

There's been much talk about 'The Cloud' - an ominous concept that essentially boils down to a virtual hard drive. With streaming technology, the compression of data without loss of quality, coming into its own - Netflix moving away from hard copy media rental, the court decisions that are starting to lead to a proliferation of streaming music services that are more customizable than those already established (Spotify, Google Music, and Groove Shark are all offering mobile services for a monthly fee, if not for free, and the ability to download content from the Cloud to the mobile device for offline enjoyment) - the question comes to sustainability of the rental or services model. Digital storage has gotten exponentially cheaper as digital memory storage has gotten cheaper and larger. So long as you've got a decent internet connection, you can enjoy listening to your entire music library that once took up considerable shelf space.

The Cloud solution means that art in the age of digital reproduction depends on digital rights management (DRM) as well as rental rights for content - such as in the Netflix model. Is this sustainable? I have no clue. I'm not here to research that. I'm just asking the questions. If there's a hundred users signed up for $10 subscriptions, that's $1000 in pocket for Netflix, minus what they have to pay for the rights to rent, their server upkeep, etc. I have no models to go on, but something seems unsustainable if there's always the factor that someone will pirate the copies that are made available through streaming networks. Torrents may take time, but utilizing the hard drives of computers hooked up to the internet, the data does not need to be stored in one server, it is extracted in pieces from disparate places. The resources to track such exchanges would appear to cost too much to curtail the activity, and the absence of cheaper alternatives would lure people away from the legal mediums towards portals that are less so.

Then there's the sharing of access between computer terminals. There doesn't seem to be a way for Netflix to monitor access to the streaming database if someone hands over their log in information, or has it stolen. If an infinite number of people sign in to one account, and share the expense, why not make the service free?

The only thing that makes sense is that there are more dollar bills that change hands in the rental deals than can be lost to piracy that keeps a company like Netflix in the black.

With that, this unlucky fellow seems to have gotten phished a few times. And I've never understood why someone would let their checking account get down so far that they risk overdraft. Sure, if you're poor, and you've got debt no honest man can pay, you're going to be getting rid of those extraneous expenses. If you really need internet, there are plenty of places you can use it for free to look for new work or find a new way to make money with spending it only on a coffee to power through ideas on making a quick buck.

Maybe you can start a witticism blog that utilizes the snarky style of blog-reporting the way Gothamist and Engaget do? It's what my unemployed ass is trying....