For two decades, the television industry convinced us that peak TV was a form of high culture. The correction is now underway, and it turns out that peak TV was something rarer and stranger: a convergence of circumstances that will not repeat.
The prestige TV era produced some of the greatest drama in the medium's history. Then the economics that made it possible collapsed, and we're only beginning to understand what we've lost.
We predicted the internet would bring democracy, abundance, and connection. It brought all three and also their opposites. Understanding what we got wrong helps explain what comes next.