The issue is not how terrific they are, but how much they cost, and whether there is enough demand to make it profitable for someone to accept the risk of providing them. Habits seem to grow out of other habits far more directly than they do out of gadgets. Television itself caused fundamental changes in our lives and seems to be an exception to Daniels s proposition. But few innovations can make such a claim. It is clear that digital technology has had and will have important effects on society and on television.
Further changes are inevitable.
But despite the hype, it is by no means clear that the Internet, as distinct from digital technology, will revolutionize television, much less the American household. The market they created resulted in a child care system that supports welfare reform, mothers employment, and sound child development. Donors take note it s a formula worth emulating. There is a larger lesson that is also worth highlighting. Past approaches to helping the poor have focused on top-down decision making, with government or large private foundations deciding what the poor need.