That old article saying the internet would kill TV in 5 years still makes me laugh

I was cleaning out my garage last weekend and found a 1998 magazine with a tech columnist swearing cable TV would be dead by 2003 because of streaming. I remember reading that as a kid and thinking wow my grandpa's gonna be so bored. Did anyone else grow up hearing predictions like this that aged worse than milk left in a hot truck?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul33013d ago

You said "aging worse than milk left in a hot truck" and honestly that's still being generous. Some predictions from back then were basically just wishful thinking dressed up as journalism. I mean yeah, cable's been losing subscribers for years, but my grandma still has her box hooked up and watches the news every night. Streaming didn't kill TV, it just made it behave more like a slow buffet than a fixed menu. Maybe the real joke is how much we used to worry about this stuff when most people still watch something on a screen in their den.

paul33013d ago

My buddy actually found a VHS recording of some 1999 tech show predicting the same thing. The host said by 2005 we'd all be watching movies on our refrigerators or something. I still have a TV in my living room and a fridge in my kitchen and they haven't merged yet. Guess I should probably stop telling students that the hoverboards from Back to the Future 2 are right around the corner. My 8th graders already think I'm ancient enough without me doubling down on predictions that bombed harder than my attempt to learn TikTok dances.