Economic downturn promotes innovation

When your wallet gets tight, and I mean REALLY tight, you are forced to re-evaluate what's important in your life and in your lifestyle. From a consumer point of you view, you look at your spending habits starting with your discretionary income and even some behavioral habits with your disposable income (turning off the lights more often, checking the thermostat).

But the silver lining in such widespread economic doom is that the best products begin to rise to the top. Cheapest, most efficient, most effective, most accessible, most convenient, most reliable, most versatile, etc. etc, etc. By forcing oneself to ultimately ask the question "If I can't have X, what other choices do I have? Hmmm...maybe I'll try Y".

CNN recently shared an article on people who are turning off their TV sets, and turning to the Internet for their TV/Movie needs. Bye bye cable, hello streaming video.



I must confess, I'm one of these people who have recently converted. I was one of those that had the HD box, DVR, VideoOnDemand, Extended Cable Package, Broadband Internet – the works. Now I've severed all of those services except for Broadband internet. With a specific cable, I've hooked up the laptop to the flat screen tv and with sites like hulu.com and cartoonnetwork.com, my family doesn't feel like their missing out on anything.

Maybe when the economy is rosy again we'll return to the full cable extravaganza, but one thing is for sure – Hulu has rescued us from boredom in these trying times and had it not being trying to begin with, we may never have used it.