57 channels
It's been over thirty years since Bruce Springsteen released "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)".
Nowadays we have like 57 streaming services, each offering almost unlimited access to entertainment. Prime Video alone is estimated to have over 20,000 movies and 2,000 shows.
Does that make us happier? Does that make our lives richer?
Of course not. Rather the opposite.
Whether we're looking for movies or milk, scanning the supply is a part-time job. There is so much to choose from that we end up doing research, checking ratings and reading reviews, trying to sort things out.
Finally we find a show that sounds right up our alley. We start watching it and halfway through the first episode we go "nah, not my kinda thing”. Let's scroll through some shorts on the phone instead.
So much time spent on basically nothing. Precious minutes, even hours each day, down the drain. And floating in that sewer are 57 blog posts and nothin' published.