Much is being said of the move by cable companies to now offer high speed internet, VoiceOverIP and of course, cable television, all in one package. This is being called a win for customers as it will increase competition in the VoIP market. Often unsaid, but very obvious, is the fact that cable companies themselves operate in a monopoly, not good for consumers. The addition of phone service to their banner of services further shores up their market dominance. This is being lauded ads a boon for consumers, but considering their total market position; this seems to be hardly be the case. Putting aside market dominance and consumer choice for now, I'll come back to it, there is another pressing and even less emphasized issue tied up with the cable triple play.

The Phones
Almost since the modern phone came to be, the monitoring of telephone usage has been a serious issue. It isn't difficult for phones to be tapped. With the advent of VoIP, phone tapping is made easier for those that have traditionally monitored phone usage, the govt, and now by others who might endeavor to listen in but have been hampered by inaccessibility in the past.
TeeVee
It's not called programming for nothing. And with the advent of faster connections in the US, television will begin being broadcast over the internet. This will allow instantaneous monitoring of viewer interest in shows and response to specific advertiser appeals (as much as channel switching informs that function). As television programming becomes more and more integrated with the internet, interactivity will become ingrained in it and with that, increased monitoring ability measurable by response just as website ad appeal can now be measured.I find website ads to be very obtrusive. This will only get worse as bandwidths increase, allowing for more elaborate video messaging to be easily transmitted. Public response to distracting website advertisements will be a precursor of what is certain to come next. What they really want. They, being media/telco conglomerates. It, being TV advertisements. Televisual advertisements are going to go the way of website advertisements, with annoying advertisements to be interacted with by the viewer appearing in the midst of continuously monitored programming. As more and more mega-media companies merge with and buyout smaller companies we will be forced to take these changes, just as we were forced to take advertisements with increasing frequency and in longer doses as TV companies particularly in the 70s but the 80s as well, consolidated their power while killing public television. As done in the 70s, media/telco giants are consolidating their holdings again. And the effects will be similiar to the effects witnessed during that period. Only worse.

Saturation
The role and importance of information in daily life is different and has vastly increased over the past 15, and certainly 30, years. Unlike the 70s, the general population is now much more connected to and reliant upon electronic media for daily living and survival. This increased dependence will mean a more pronounced effect of increasingly obtrusive and penetrating advertising content on everyone and the society at large. It is speculative as to what this effect will be but if history is an indication, we can expect a fearful, atomized that more and more buys into the idea of individualism as opposed to collective conceptions of social and political life.

Hope
There is none.

Only joking. The prognosis is grim but the constants of social physics dictate that only so much consolidation, price increase, choice decrease and advertisement bombardment will be tolerated before a backlash occurs as it did in the early 80s culminating with the breakup of AT&T into the regional bell operating companies. I believe we'll see something analogous to that breakup happen again. And as leftist struggles victories reverberate globally, the American backlash will be greater than it previously was. And less contained as it won't be specific to the media conglomerates who will be the ostensible targets but who will, of course, attempt to limit it to simple matters of product choice and price. The change in social and economic conditions that have made the new consolidations, and their effects, possible will only augment the inevitable backlash which will be huge.