DROPPING TV, VIDEO AND DIGITAL MUSIC CONSUMPTION
TV Shipments dropped 4% in 2015, their largest annual decrease in five years.
Television sales in Italy dropped 10% from 2016 to 2017.
TV connections decreased 0.3% in the 2nd Quarter of 2017.
In May 2017, Vulture said TV Ratings were “way down” , asked “But Does It Even Matter?”
In September 2017, Fortune said “NFL Ratings Decline: Football Can't Keep TV Afloat Anymore”.
Where they used “decline” because it’s softer than “drop”, and because it’s general, and because it echoes the word “recline”. The international news blackout that is in place on this subject forbids the use of any statistics in headlines that would provide insight into the magnitude of the trend I”m documenting here.
In September 2017, Forbes said “TV Ad Spend Drops As Cord-Cutting In The U.S. Accelerates”.
Where “drops” and “accelerates” are both general hedges, put forward to blunt any specific insight into the magnitude of the trend I’m documenting here. The propagandist “compartmentalizes” the phenomenon knowing that sixty to seventy percent of readers only read the headlines.
In October 2017, mixmag.com said “Vinyl sales show strong increase as digital music sales continue to drop”.
Where “STRONG INCREASE” and “DROP” are both general. The international news blackout that is in place on the subject strictly forbids the use of statistics in headlines that would provide insight into the magnitude of the trend I’m documenting here.
The article doesn’t venture any guess as to why either of those trends are taking place. That’s an example of a propaganda technique known as “stonewalling”.
Overall video consumption in the U.K. dropped approximately 5% from 2018 to 2019, the first drop since 1995.
DROPPING VIDEO GAME USE
In 2017, Barron’s said videogame sales were “fading”.
The Apple App Store saw 5 percent fewer app and game downloads in Q1 2019 as it did during the same time period in 2018.
DROPPING WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY USE
Garmin’s fitness revenue decreased 15% in the 2nd Quarter of 2017, year-over-year, citing 'Market Declines’.
In August 2017, Gartner said international wearable device sales would increase 17% in 2018.
DROPPING SMART HOME APPLIANCE USE
“He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them. With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking. . . . Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings; for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.”
From “1984”, by George Orwell, 1949
Systems that play back can also record. Systems that provide images can also record images. Systems that play sound can also record sound.
The populace has begun to recognize these truths, and that awareness is rapidly increasing.
The repugnant “smart” home is a fad that has passed like the hula hoop. Although they briefly came back not long ago.
In 2017, Wikileaks said the CIA was using popular TVs, smartphones and cars to spy.
In February 2017, Wired wrote an article entitled “How To Stop Your Smart TV From Spying on You”, when they know that such a thing is not possible.
In July 2017, TechCrunch said “Siri remains the most popular virtual assistant with 41.4 million monthly active users in the U.S., according to a new report from measurement firm Verto Analytics out this morning, but it has seen a 15 percent decline since last year – or 7.3 million monthly users.”
Where they used “decline” because it’s softer than “drop”, and because it echoes the word “recline”.
A 15% year over year drop in sales is what Harvard Business School refers to as a “going out of business number”.
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