The Shock of the New

I really like your magazine, but it has an annoying habit of assuming the reader is more up the step, so to speak, with the technology than they may be. Yes, you make a good effort to explain new standards— that’s not my issue. What I do take issue with is when your writers jump into a review at a level where I am uncertain what the device

rallied. But that does not exactly guarantee a comeback. Many people will return to theaters, but some will not. In the interim, home streaming has become more popular and many people are liking what they are seeing.

Consider the question of habituation. We are creatures of habit. If you have eggs for breakfast every morning, you will probably continue to have eggs. But if your egg supply is disrupted for a year, and you switch to bagels, you have broken your egg habit. When eggs return, you might switch back, but you might also stick with bagels. Like I say, we are movies at home.

My bold prediction is that the theatrical movie business will never be quite the same. Streaming was already on the ascent, and now Covid has literally closed the door to theaters and opened the door to even more streaming. That double whammy of both trend and disruption will spoil the theater industry’s fairy tale. Instead, home theaters will be the Goldilocks story for many people, and the movie industry will pivot to accommodate it. If anyone thought you were nutty because you were into home theater, you can rest easy. You