In addition to oversaturation, on-demand access to things can also lead to a sort of paralysis: the fact that I have access to shows on demand all the time mean

In addition to oversaturation, on-demand access to things can also lead to a sort of paralysis: the fact that I have access to shows on demand all the time means I almost never actually watch them. After all I can always do something else (read a book, browse HN) and watch that thing some other time. Whereas I will watch live TV (Jeopardy, sports), because I have to turn on the TV at a particular time to see it. Your line of thought "rhymes" in an interesting way with Matt Levine's column today about how illiquidity sometimes has value [0]: > Another, funnier sort of financial innovation is about subtracting liquidity. If you can buy and sell something whenever you want at a clearly observable market price, that is efficient, sure, but it can also be annoying. Consider the following financial product: > 1. You give me the password to your brokerage account. > 2. I change it. > 3. You can’t look at your brokerage account for one year, because you don’t have the password. > 4. At the end of the year, I give you back your password and you pay me $5. > Is this a good product? For me, sure, I got $5 for like one minute of work.[1] For you, I would argue, it’s also pretty good. For one thing, you avoid the stress of looking at your brokerage account all the time and worrying when it goes down. For another thing, you avoid the popular temptation of bad market timing: You can’t panic and sell stocks after they fall, or get greedy and buy more after they rise, because I have your password. [0]: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/matt-levines-money-stuff-people-will-pay-for-illiquidity https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/matt-levines-money...