Resisting fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour is a futile task. We are moving from the distribution era when everything was about linearly programmed channels and selling units of stuff to the consumption era when consumers value access over ownership. There is an inevitability about the shift in consumer behaviour of which streaming is merely a manifestation. While I’m perhaps being a little unfair to our esteemed Mr Yorke his quote illustrates the stark contrast in how one can view impending change. Something certainly appears to have happened to the eloquence of observation over the decades.

Here he is in 1939 talking about the advent of a TV broadcast network against the backdrop of the globe teetering on the brink of world war.Īnd then fast forward 70 odd years to the emergence of streaming music, and we get this…. This quote is from David Sarnoff, the Belorussian-American radio and TV pioneer who oversaw the birth of RCA and NBC. Here new technology is eloquently portrayed with an almost magical profundity. This first quote is from the American author and essayist EB White writing in 1933 on the impact of radio. To illustrate the point, here are three examples from the last century of how vested interests have viewed revolutionary new media technology. While it would be bland and disingenuous to say that change is merely a state of mind, a positive outlook that is focused on the opportunities can make the world of difference. But the impact of change is as much in the eye of the beholder as the disruption itself. Disruptive technology and the change it brings can be overwhelming, particularly when it threatens to change forever all that we have known.

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