Buffeted by websites designed to distract, who-wants-to-be-a-celebrity, and the rest, streamed television—the convergence Microsoft could not quite foresee—was suddenly and unexpectedly emerging as a haven in the digital pandemonium. Television—which once had shown such promise to improve the human condition, but which had been kidnapped by commercial interests virtually at birth and raised to be the greatest attention harvester of the twentieth century and still the attention merchant's favorite servant—was now repaying the attention it attracts in a way that put the viewer's experience first.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 1109