re: Scary thoughts
It's a last-ditch scenario, since there'd be hell to pay once we caught on.
One would hope. I have less faith in our collective attention span now than I did a couple of years ago. If something A) drags on, and B) doesn't make for exciting television, most of us tend to just let it go, I think.
OTOH, the Net has become near-and-dear to a lot of hearts, so messing with it might be tantamount to messing with someone's ride...bad news!