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A Deadly Device: The Dark Side of DTV

By I. P. Daemon

Now keep this under your hat, because I sure wouldn't want the little woman to get wind of this, but there's no way we're getting one of those digital TVs.

I know the picture quality is great. In fact, just the idea of seeing my favorite fishing programs and monster truck demolition rallies as clear as a bell and without having to constantly adjust that coat hanger we've been using for an antenna is mighty appealing.

But it's a trap, I tell you. An evil scheme invented by people who want to fundamentally alter the balance of domestic power, and old I.P. is not going to take it lying down in his favorite recliner. That dog just won't hunt.

It all started when my friend, DuBob, the only Amway salesman in three counties, came over for our customary Tuesday night bible study and martini club. As usual, DuBob forgot his bible and ours hasn't been worth looking at ever since I used it to help shore up the leaky differential on the '68 Falcon out in the front yard. But that's another story. Anyway, with the prospect of praying laid quickly to rest, we commenced to swilling, talking and rocking out on the front veranda.

Once DuBob had a couple of Sapphires in him, he started to tell me about this new pyramid scheme he's involved with called Big Planet. Now I just call it a pyramid scheme because I know it eats at him, and he gets all mad in a funny, red-faced, vein-popping kind of way. He calls it a multi-level marketing opportunity, or a network selling structure.

So here's the deal. DuBob says a bunch of clever Silicon Valley slickers have gotten together to sell folks any number of a huge array of useful services under one umbrella. Services like local dial tone, long distance, Internet access, paging services, satellite TV and home security. They plan to offer other soon-to-be-deregulated utilities too, like electricity and gas. They'll even sell you one of those new-fangled set-top boxes that let you alternate between TV programming and the Web. Woohoo!

These aren't fly-by-night suppliers either. The companies behind Big Planet are outfits even DuBob has heard of. Oracle, Worldcom, UUNet. This stuff will be cheap, too. Like 24 by 7 domestic long distance at nine cents a minute - less if you don't mind being billed electronically.

By now, DuBob was getting all excited and started spilling his fifth martini. He had signed up as a sales rep for Big Planet, you see, and he's pretty high up in the pyramid. At that moment, with a blood alcohol level traversing the spectrum to the red zone, all he could see were dollar signs from folks in three surrounding counties who don't yet know they need all this stuff. And when they do, DuBob will get his cut.

Then the conversation took a sinister turn. DuBob says some folks have invented a way to embed a Web page in the vertical blanking interval of the TV signal. So what, says I. DuBob leans his rocker in so close to me that I can smell the moon pie he had for supper and slurs one hideous, unmistakable epithet - "advertising."

He then proceeds to paint a picture of the Academy Awards broadcast in 1999. Tens of millions tuned in around the world, among them, millions of Big Planet subscribers, watching the broadcast via their set-top devices. A Sears commercial comes on the screen, advertising some product we probably don't need. The commercial says "See the embedded Web site for a special deal!" The viewer presses the "Web" button on the remote control to reveal a site in an on-screen window promoting an "Academy Awards Special." DuBob was ready to bust a gusset at this point. "All you do then," he said with a greedy, demonic cackle, "is press the BUY button."

I'm not exactly sure what happened next, but I know I dropped my favorite P.G. Wodehouse martini glass and gasped for air. "There's a BUY button on the remote?" I croaked.

The room began to spin as I recalled the ongoing domestic battle over our remote control. I always feel the cosmos are somehow out of balance unless I hold the remote in my hands. My memory harkens back to endless spousal complaining as I confidently and rightfully flip through all the channels during commercials.

My prior attempts at compromise went unheeded. I've offered to buy her her own TV, which would sit side by side with our existing RCA, or get one of those newfangled picture-in-picture TVs that required a separate tuner. But no. The Imperial High Command said she was not going to pay good money just to make my TV watching more convenient.

But a BUY button changes everything. It crumples the very fabric of the universe. It turns the enjoyable, relaxing, passive and numbing pastime of watching the tube into the painful, stressful and active task of SHOPPING! If SWMBO gets even one hint of this, I'll never feel the cool, smooth contours of the remote in my own hands again. And we will be broke.

No, friends, the Daemon trailer will never have DTV. As far as I'm concerned, it stands for Dollars Transferred to Vendors. Mark my words: this will be my Waterloo, my hill to die on. And as soon as DuBob comes to, I'm telling him so.