As we head into a winter lockdown, who will win?
Last Saturday, I askedmy wife howshewanted to spend the evening.“Well,” she said.“We could take the dog for awalk or watch something on a screen.”
My face must have fallen. “You knowwhat?” she said, brightly. “We could do both.”
In the first phase of this pervasive COVID-19 nightmare, screens dominated our lockeddown lives, providing education for our children, a gateway to buying stuff and almost all of our entertainment options. The economic consequence of thiswas a massive win for international in-home content facilitators and providers like Zoom andNetflix, a devastating loss for local restaurants and live music venues, and a ground-shaking pivot toward streaming frompreviously diversified entertainment conglomerates like Disney. The power base inHollywood has changed more in the last six months than the previous six years.
Futurists are predicting that the pandemic has accelerated the permanent decline of everything fromwatchingmovies in traditional theaters to standing in line at theme parks. But aswe approach what is looking more and more like a second lockdown, this one timed alongside a cold, dark winter here in the upper Midwest, are those in-home screens
going to dominate everything again? Is Big Tech going to once again take home all the spoils? Arewe all going to let that happen? Arewe content to so reorder our lives? Like, permanently?
It’s hard to say. Local cultural
enterprises tend to be more tactile and intimate, since venture capitalists prefer to focus on that which can be duplicated and scaled. The tactile and intimate is not having a banner year.
In recent days, Illinois Gov. J.B.
Pritzker announced a suspension of indoor dining in Chicago and much of the state, putting huge financial pressure on restaurants and bars forced to cope with a dizzying procession of everchanging rules and regulations, even as other businesses have been allowed to operate far nearer to normalcy. Justified as theymay be as the virus rages, such restrictions inevitably result in an advantage for national chains better able to withstand an economic downturn than a local tavern-keeper who has rent to pay thisweek. And once eateries are forced to focus on home delivery, that diverts a big chunk of spending to technology companies like DoorDash who’ve swallowed up a huge share of what oncewas a locally controlled delivery market.
Live entertainmentwas already mostly shuttered but the new rules have forced even the gutsy comedy club Zanies, which