A thought occurred to me as I was somewhat stewing over Comcast's recent limitations on my downloading and uploading starting on Oct. 1.
Quite a few products are made from a barrel of oil or a byproduct of. With the price of oil over $100, everyone and their cousin is crying conservation, smaller cars, and better fuel mileage. Now granted, vehicles (*cough* SUVs *cough* Hummers) are a part pf the problem, but what if there was something else that could make a huge dent in oil conservation? Something in the Occam's Razor category? Something KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)?
I ran into Circuit City the other day trolling around for a new mouse, while also finishing a shopping trip from Target and a quick run through Best Buy and I noticed how many movies and games there were at all the stores. And they're all on optical discs. Movies, Music, TV Shows, Blu-Ray, PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, PC games, applications, and on, and on, and on. All on optical discs, all in plastic cases and boxes, and all made, material wise, from oil in some way, shape, or form.
Guess what folks. We go to downloadable and digital distribution content, we take out a giant chunk of oil-manufactured products. From actually making the discs and plastic cases, to shipping the material on giant freighters and UPS/DHL/USPS shipping trucks, a giant dent can be made in oil and fuel consumption in one fell swoop.
The digital distribution framework is there. The broadband and bandwidth speeds and pipe are there. With low power server SSD drives, a dent can be made in server farm energy consumption and heat dissipation right there. All the parts and puzzle peices are there; they just have to be put together.
Detroit and the auto industry are far behind the curve as they've ben working hand and hand wit the oil industries for years and they had gotten very comfortable with navigating the money making and shaking beauracracy with each other and the various governements of the world. They're not going to give up the cornerstone of their money making abilities without kicking and screaming quietly into the night.
Imagine the money that can be saved and made just from going to digital distribution content.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment