Media
Friday, May 24, 2002What if we made the sale of our time more obvious?
What is your time worth? Not what do you earn hourly now, but what is the time when you are not working worth to you?Suppose you were to wait an hour in the doctor's office for a 10 minute visit. What if at the end of that visit, the bill were reduced by the time you waited?
Suppose you went to a motion picture, and it was horrible. What if the theatre returned not only the $9.00 cost of the ticket, but also compensated you for the three minutes before you walked out? Blockbuster is halfway there: they give you another "Blockbuster Favorite" gratis if you hate the one you rented.
Or, take an industry that is only a reseller: broadcast television. Our time is currently bought only with interesting shows, in the hope that we'll sit through the commercials. What if we were compensated monetarily for the time we spend in front of the tube? Advertisers pay the broadcaster; the broadcaster pays us, in coin and entertainment. The advertiser may wish to pay us directly, but the rate would likely be higher — we need that spoonful of sugar to make the advertising go down. Similiarly, a boring show would cost more to the broadcaster than an entertaining show.
This would need to be a variable rate. Spare time is more valuable to a single mother of three who works 12 hours a day at $8.00 per hour. A movie for her, at New York rates, is a net loss of $2.00 — $3.50 if she watches Titanic, not counting what it would be if she took the children. She can't afford to not work those two hours.
Right now, the exchange is a barter of our time for their shows. We care nothing for the advertisements; there's no contract requiring us to watch them. They resell our time to the advertisers on the assumption that we don't have legs.
February 20, 2003: lawsuits filed in Cook County Circuit Court allege fraud, deceptive advertising, and breach of contract in cases where theaters start movies later than the advertised time in order to show advertisements.
1:23:10 PM # Google It!
categories: Industry, Media