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It sort of happened, just 20 years later, and the details are different. The web's user experience proved to be superior to that of physical media you had to sw

It sort of happened, just 20 years later, and the details are different. The web's user experience proved to be superior to that of physical media you had to switch out, but Internet speeds had to get fast enough (and the usage billed in a lenient way) for rich multimedia to be delivered smoothly. In the meantime, the TV screen lost relevance to first desktop computers, then laptop computers, then smartphones. Microsoft was the only large company who consistently hammered on this idea (Encarta, DHTML, MSN, HD-DVD's HDi, Xbox 360's dashboard), and with a vested interest in the health of the desktop ecosystem, but they couldn't execute this first convergence -- and ironically, neither the second convergence of desktops and smartphones. Apple and Google leapfrogged them in critical ways, and this interactive consumption revolution took place on the latter two's portable smartphones instead.

ericras 8y ago
It definitely happened, but in a much different way: mostly over the internet/www and on computers and phones. The vision in the early-mid 90s was for something like MSNBC to be an interactive TV channel, delivered by the TV/cable provider, where you could chat/vote/etc through the TV and customize your experience. That sounds similar to what we have now (with their cable channel, accompanying website, app, Twitter, etc) but the technical details and delivery mechanisms ended up being totally different.
- zeveb 8y ago
  > That sounds similar to what we have now (with their cable channel, accompanying website, app, Twitter, etc) but the technical details and delivery mechanisms ended up being totally different. I think the really key thing here is that general-purpose computing won over purpose-built devices. Yeah, an mid-90s embedded system probably had a better UI in many ways than even a 2018 browser-based system, but that embedded system could only do one thing well while the browser system can do many, many things — and some of them quite well indeed! Moreover, it turns out that all those industry committees couldn't accurately predict the future. Neither could the free Web folks (anyone remember the Semantic Web?) — but because the free folks let anyone do anything, they let the winners do their thing. Meanwhile, the centralised industry committees didn't allow experimentation — or when they did, didn't allow enough. C.f. OSI vs TCP/IP, X.400 vs SMTP &c.

ericras 8y ago

It definitely happened, but in a much different way: mostly over the internet/www and on computers and phones. The vision in the early-mid 90s was for something like MSNBC to be an interactive TV channel, delivered by the TV/cable provider, where you could chat/vote/etc through the TV and customize your experience. That sounds similar to what we have now (with their cable channel, accompanying website, app, Twitter, etc) but the technical details and delivery mechanisms ended up being totally different.

zeveb 8y ago
> That sounds similar to what we have now (with their cable channel, accompanying website, app, Twitter, etc) but the technical details and delivery mechanisms ended up being totally different. I think the really key thing here is that general-purpose computing won over purpose-built devices. Yeah, an mid-90s embedded system probably had a better UI in many ways than even a 2018 browser-based system, but that embedded system could only do one thing well while the browser system can do many, many things — and some of them quite well indeed! Moreover, it turns out that all those industry committees couldn't accurately predict the future. Neither could the free Web folks (anyone remember the Semantic Web?) — but because the free folks let anyone do anything, they let the winners do their thing. Meanwhile, the centralised industry committees didn't allow experimentation — or when they did, didn't allow enough. C.f. OSI vs TCP/IP, X.400 vs SMTP &c.