Complaints because we can't order up a very recent movie on demand on our TV as easily as we'd like.

A little nostalgia...

Through most of my childhood, our TV was black and white. We got three networks, two local stations, and one public station. If you were cool, you had a roof antenna. If you were cheap and lived in a city, you could get away with the rabbit ears.

You saw a movie in the theaters, or you missed it. Sometimes theaters that specialized in old stuff would cough it up again, or film festivals in odd places. Eventually--years later--it might show up on TV. If you missed it there, tough. Disney movies would see a theater re-release every generation or so.

When I was in high school, the school video tape recorder was black and white, and reel-to-reel. Eventually, years later, VCRs came out. Movies began showing up in that format, but still at least a couple of years after they hit theaters. You either bought the movie, or rented it.

The tech now is glorious, and I believe I'm getting great value for my cable TV money. With dish and cable competing, we don't get the crap treatment we used to get when cable companies had licensed monopolies in the neighborhood. Or at least not as much. Just the invention of the digital video recorder (Tivo) is worth it all.

I can get almost ANYTHING on DVD, including rare old TV stuff. Someday I'll go Blu-Ray. But not for a while.