A Major Disruption In Your Living Room

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A MAJOR DISRUPTION IN YOUR LIVING ROOM

I just read a newsletter which I received from The Motley Fool. I believe that what it speaks about is absolute near-term Global Futurist gospel. The is about to be a major disruption right in your living room. Please forgive the spacing and idiosyncratic fonts in this post -- I was so excited and so eager to get it out on a timely basis, that I didn't get a chance to edit it properly.

I have excerpted the following information from that newsletter [this excerpt does not contain the full content of the newsletter itself]:

December 20, 2015

Hi Fellow Fools:

It shouldn't shock you to hear that I'm known as "tech-guy" in my extended family ... always rambling about new gadgets and predictions for the future.

So when scheduling conflicts forced us to open Christmas presents early and my wife unwrapped the newest version of Apple TV, I was more than happy to oblige my family's request to immediately set it up. After setup was complete, their next request shouldn't surprise you either: they wanted to watch a Christmas movie.

So, I handed my wife the remote and told her to simply ask for what she wanted.

Pressing down a button to activate Siri, she said, "Let's watch a Christmas movie on Netflix" ... and was immediately provided a listing of holiday films matching her search. One click later, the movie popped up in Netflix, and we were enjoying a family Christmas flick together. It took all of 10 seconds. Everyone thought the new device was pretty magical. I could tell because they actually applauded when we found a movie so effortlessly.

The future of TV is here ... and there may still be time for you to profit from it.

The future is now

Long-time readers of this column will recall that I've discussed the huge profits up for grabs as consumers shift their spending dollars from expensive cable bills to new forms of entertainment.

An email I sent on July 19 titled, "How you could profit from millions canceling cable" predicted the following:

"My research ... [from February 2014]... showed that we were nearing a tipping point where consumers would begin calling it quits [with their cable bill]. I anticipated that these cancelations would be relatively light to start, but would gain traction and eventually destabilize the entire industry."

At the time, that opinion was very controversial. Up to 2013, the number of people subscribing to paid television options like cable TV had never declined in a single year!

But just last week, we saw the clearest indication yet that my prediction will be right on the money. New findings from researcher eMarketer now predict that before the end of the decade, 23% of households won't pay for the traditional TV we're used to.

Think about that for a moment. We've gone from cable growing every single year to years of accelerating losses so great that nearly a quarter of American homes will have "cut the cord!"

From this new research to my family's reaction to the Apple TV (a device built to appeal to cord cutters), all evidence points toward Americans shifting away from the "old TV" that's been dominant for decades at a stunning pace.

A bet you can make that's worked for centuries

While this trend is unwelcome news to TV incumbents like Comcast (not that you'll be shedding a tear for them!), there's a larger shift that creates huge opportunity for investors like you.

TV is at the center of an entertainment industry that PwC estimates will hit $2.2 trillion by 2017. The industry's continuing growth is a pretty safe bet. Namely because entertainment's growth is fueled by people being more productive at work and having more free time, and also having more discretionary wealth to spend on being entertained. With the world's wealth and productivity having risen for centuries, that's the kind of investing bet I like to make.

Netflix (NFLX) has been the poster child of how ahead-of-the-curve investors can benefit from this trend so far. Fool co-founder David Gardner recommended Netflix six different times to Stock Advisor members through the years. As I'm writing this, the best of those recommendations (from December 2004) is up a stunning 6,393%!

But, there's more opportunity ahead

However, while Netflix is the clearest beneficiary of the evolution sweeping the television industry, there are plenty of other areas of opportunity spread across the trillions of entertainment dollars spent each year.

Here's one example of a booming area of entertainment that's set for huge growth: virtual reality. Yes, it's been an absolute joke for decades, but don't be surprised to see it finally begin invading homes next year.

The promise of virtual reality - taking tours of the world's greatest wonders, stepping inside the scenes of movies - has always been a no-brainer experience consumers would love. The missing ingredient was technology good enough (and cheap enough!) to deliver compelling experiences.

That's about to change in 2016. A series of VR headsets are coming out from companies like Facebook (FB), Samsung, HTC, and many others. I'm going to the world's largest technology show in two weeks, and the number of emails flooding my inbox from virtual reality companies wanting to show me new, amazing technologies is simply overwhelming.

Best of all if you're an investor, this progress has turned into results. The company that makes the processors that many of these VR sets rely on to power their visuals has seen its share price explode in the second half of 2015 as tech insiders saw the advances in VR technology.

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Yes, I believe that it is inevitable. Expect a major disruption right in your living room. Also, please be mindful of the fact that neither this blog nor the author ever provide investment advice. There will be some kinks to be worked out (aren't there always some bugs and bug fixes with every major consumer technology app release?), some privacy or other concerns, some die-hard traditionalists and the usual background noise of the naysayers, but this is an innovation and an application which simply should not and cannot be ignored by anyone.

Happy holidays, and my very best wishes to each and all for a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.

Labels, Tags, Keywords, Categories And Search Terms For This Article:
Apple TV, app, television, TV, Netflix, disruption, home, entertainment, Douglas E. Castle, The Global Futurist Blog, technology, 

- Douglas E. Castle



THE GLOBAL FUTURIST – Douglas E Castle

http://theglobalfuturist.blogspot.com

Discovering and following significant trends across an extensive range of domestic and international consumer, business, demographic, cultural, economic, political, technological and other key areas of influence and impact on life and business; predicting future change, preparing for it and profiting from it.

Key Terms: business, forecasting, trends, future, prediction, disruption, displacement, innovation, complexity theory, economic waves and cycles, projections, planning



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Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses And Consumers: A New Trend Toward Activism.

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Entrepreneurs, Small businesses and consumers, rising up in righteous indignation, are leaning less toward benign resignation to enslavement by the few, and more toward activism in a groundswell of disgust with the status quo. Social media has played a great role in this.

The US population is becoming increasingly frustrated and disgusted with the abuses visited upon them by monopolistic, unresponsive utilities companies and governmentally-endorsed service-providers. As author of The Global Futurist, I felt compelled to share this excerpted Yahoo! News article with my fellow entrepreneurs, thought-leaders, business owners, project managers, strategic planners and trend-spotters.

The notion of "Moving Off Of The Grid" is one that is rapidly catching fire amongst the consumer and small business population. They have become increasingly distrustful of these largely uncontrolled organizations. I believe that this signifies a very significant trend that is going to lead to an increased growth in what I shall term "bypass services" -- services that can be used to bypass the local reigning monopolists.

Further, I believe that this trend and tendency will cross many different service sectors from automobile fuels, to energy sources, to telecommunications, to transportation, to healthcare and a variety of other services upon which the populace has come to depend.

This is increasingly evidenced by the acceptance of the idea of sustainability, the market movement toward hybrid automobiles, alternative energy source utilization and the cutting of any umbilical cord which leads to a controlling, monopolistic, plutocratic and domineering mother-figure utility or dominant territorial service provider who likely paid for the territory won in a transaction that was not structured in the public interest.

This increasing distrust of large utilities, sole-source suppliers, and of government-at-large is being further spurred by the proliferation of negative news and transparency created by the growing popularity and ready accessibility of social media. Add a few "classified" documents disseminated by such organizations as WikiLeaks, and the anti-establishment is slowly but surely growing.

It is almost a cultural throwback to the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States where our gas-guzzling musclecars (yet to experience our first artificially-created exploitative 'gasoline shortage') sported decorative (but thought-provoking) bumper stickers which imparted such wisdom as "Question Authority" and "Visualize World Peace"...with the occasional dark-windowed van sporting something more portentious, such as "The Only Solution Is Revolution."

The trend spells a grassroots groundswell of discontentment and activism. It will be fascinating to see how far this movement will be permitted to escalate and proclaim itself before it is either palliated or repressed by the most powerful and elite elements who are the puppeteers holding most of the strings, and most of the cards, as well.

Regardless, our conformist domestic and global cultures are starting to become riled after years of mainstream media-induced hypnotism and reliance on "too-big-to-fail" bulwark establishments. This has the potential to create an environment which will be increasingly receptive to entrepreneurship, small businesses, and [hopefully] a bit of re-Humanization.

Here is the article:

NetflixHelps People Cut Cable Cord, Report Says

NICK BILTON, On Wednesday June 15, 2011, 4:23 pm EDT

It has now been a couple of years since I cut my cable and began exclusively watching Internet video on my home television. I still feel that it was one of the wiser decisions I've made with technology, saving me hundreds of dollars a year and countless headaches dealing with a cable company.

But was this just a move to be expected of a techie? Some have speculated that cutting the cable cord is simply a fad. But a new report issued on Wednesday suggests that if it is a fad, it's one that's moving into the mainstream.

The report, the result of a survey of 2,000United Statesadultbroadbandusers, found that people who useNetflixto streamInternet videoto their televisions are twice as likely to cancel, or slim down, theircable televisionoptions as they were a year ago.The report comes from the Diffusion Group, aDallas-based media research firm.

When the Diffusion Group surveyed Netflix members in 2010, they found that 16 percent of customers were planning to downgrade or cancel theircable televisionservice. During the same survey this year, the number of customers planning to make that change had doubled to 32 percent.

The report also found that although the majority of those surveyed cited economic reasons and "the need to save money" as a rationale for canceling cable, 34 percent said a growing use ofonline video was the culprit, "two-thirds of which citeNetflix in particular as the primary perpetrator," the report says.

Now, instead of having only the option to pay a cable company to deliver content, people have an array of choices and devices. Netflixclearly saw this trend coming, and over the past year has started offering its video content on mobile phones, tablets, computers, game consoles, or devices that hook up to a television, including Boxee and Apple TV. The company also began offering customers a streaming-only option late last year. ####

Perhaps some positive change will blossom from this new season of discontent. I hope so. Expect interesting times ahead for cult leaders, thought-leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Ultimately, consumers stand to benefit the most.

Faithfully,

Douglas E Castle

Original Published Title Of This Article By Author Douglas E Castle, Chairman of TNNWC: "CONSUMERS AND BUSINESSES - MOVING OFF OF THE GRID."

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NOTICE: This article is Copyright © 2011 by author Douglas E Castle with all rights reserved. It may be republished without permission provided that it is published in full, with all hyperlinks and exhibits left intact, and with full attribution given the author. This article does not contain or constitute medical, health, psychological, legal, regulatory, investment, securities, financial, tax, or any other form of professional advice -- the reader acknowledges and accepts this disclaimer. Further, the reader indemnifies and holds harmless both the author and all publications in which this article appears of any damages, claims, loss, responsibility or liability emerging from the reader’s utilization of any information contained herein.

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