Back-engineering public demand through analysing present habits. This is one reason why all those companies want to use the "aggregate" information provided by web surfing, Tivo boxes, and the like.

I view it as a failure of imagination, an inability to take risks, a faux popularity contest where all the contestants are predetermined. There is no evolution of concepts or products, merely recapitulation of current options. The recursive vision. Stagnant progress, selling flash and sizzle. Substance of conservative social values. Decline of society living through past glory as if it has present meaning.

(This post is cryptic because I don't have time to really fill in the details. Thus I'm presenting you with a vague bunch of phrases and an odd outline of a post rather than substantial writing. Perhaps it will show how absolutely brilliant I am to turn such meanderings into a coherent post. Or how I'm really a schizoid poet trying to achieve linear expression. I rant, you decide.)