(empo-tymshft) Perspective on television availability

In the course of an advertising post, the Escape Pod Agency blog made the following observation:

i was the first generation that had access to VCRs. that meant we could theoretically watch what we wanted. we were in fact limited to watching whatever Hollywood begrudgingly put on VHS or Betamax in 1979.

But at the time it seemed tremendous. Just like those cable channels with dozens of channels. Wow.