It's rarely pointed out, even though it's so obvious, that the artistic triumph of the small screen has paradoxically come at the expense of advertising.

Among the more pleasing by-products of the coming end of advertising is a heretical realization among some industry thinkers: the idea that for advertising to survive, or rather to thrive, it must add value to people's lives. In a world in which lazy, superfluous, and stupid no longer cut it, advertising will have no choice but to compete as primary content, not secondary intrusion. It will become the thing, not the thing that sells the thing.

Young people, not to mention people of all ages, really, really don't like being annoyed. And ads, almost always, were annoying. There is nothing beautiful, let alone useful, not to mention authentic, about being interrupted, distracted, or annoyed by something you didn't choose to see.

Apple has over 30% of the MP3 player market when you look at hard-drive-based players and flash-memory-based players. (If you look at just the hard-drive players, Apple's share is in the 80% range.)

If you think this is a free country, try selling something

Control is an advertising concept.