The future is… well, complicated.

I am a huge Star Trek geek, TNG being my favorite series. I remember as a teenager, watching in awe as the future of humanity unfolded before my eyes. Teleportation, amazing medical breakthroughs, portable computers as thin as a pad of paper, replicators, and and the ability to access all human knowledge at your fingertips at anytime. What a grand vision it was. As we all know, much of that vision has come true or will within our lifetimes. Today we have tablet computers, 3D printers, computers that talk to us, medical technology saving lives every day, and there have even been university experiments to transport single photons. The future is looking pretty bright (no pun intended, photons, get it?)

But the biggest disappointment to me, is that we still lack access to all human knowledge, especially the intellectual property type. Sure we have the Internet, Wikipedia, blogs, etc but if you want to consume something that is copyrighted, it gets complicated. Thanks to apprehensive content owners and lawyers, the ability to call up any TV show, movie, song, or piece of artwork instantaneously is as much science fiction today as it was 20 years ago. But don’t blame the technology – it’s ready and waiting. Blame the lawyers and copyright holders.  Unfortunately Star Trek never saw coming (or chose to avoid) the complex issues of international copyright law, trademarks, and intellectual property rights.

Take Netflix for example – probably the biggest (while still being legal) digital library of TV shows/movies in the world.  It’s truly amazing that I can call up TV shows and movies on my phone, tablet, or TV and watch nearly instantly. But the library is far from complete, and because of agreements with studios, popular new releases are typically still only available by disc.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that artists and other creatives should be paid for their work. The problem is, the current Streaming Media landscape of various websites, subscriptions, logins, and devices is a rats nest. Say for example you want to watch a show from HBO on your Tivo box. Well if you are an Xfinity customer with a paid HBO subscription, you can watch the current season (and sometimes prior seasons). But if the episode you want to watch isn’t available, you have to watch via DVD/blu ray, or load up the HBO GO app on a computer/tablet. Sure you can rig up a computer to your TV, but that is too much hassle for most consumers. Other shows/movies are only available on Itunes, youtube, Amazon, Vudu, hulu, Google Play, Sony Entertainment, hitbless, etc. And not all streaming services support all devices, so if you want to watch content on your TV or tablet, you might be out of luck.

The point is, this is a complicated mess, and it’s anti-consumer. To access all of this content would require multiple subscriptions, devices, and accounts. I believe many consumers would pay to consume media legally IF they had an easy and convenient way to do so.

So I am putting out an audacious call to action – there has to be a solution. There are brilliant tech companies being founded every day in garages and on Kickstarter, and the tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon already have access to much of this content. What I want is ONE service (or meta-service) and ONE subscription with ONE login where I can view ALL of the content on multiple devices. Is it too much to ask?

Blame Star Trek for getting my hopes up, I know the current generation of tech gurus can come up with something!