Breaking news: Reed Hastings predicts TV will be watched on TV screens in the future
Visionary visionary, Reed Hastings, has repeated his not entirely disinterested vision for TV for the first time in days.
Speaking solely for the benefit of his investors, the CEO of Netflix broadcast his views live to an audience in Berlin (although they are now available to watch on-demand).
Like he always does, Hastings claimed that ‘internet TV’ would replace ‘linear TV’. Bewildered listeners wondered what he meant as lots of linear TV is already watched via the internet – streamed live or watched on-demand.
If he meant on-demand viewing would replace linear viewing, then he was just plain wrong. Again. The two live and thrive side by side and together fulfil a wide range of fundamental human needs.
Producing no evidence and ignoring every known fact, he claimed that TV companies – who make their content available in every way that people want to watch it, over the internet included – hope the internet is a ‘fad’ and that it will ‘go away’, which is a ridiculous assertion.
Peering into his crystal ball, Hastings predicted that the screens we watch TV on in the future will ‘look like a large iPad’ – in other words, they will look like TVs.
He also said strange things like ‘the internet will become the basis for all social interaction’, which is just plain depressing.
‘What I’m selling is what people should want,’ Hastings should have said.
Hastings is scheduled curated to say the same thing again soon.