Muzak has been around a disturbingly long time.
As previously mentioned, there is a popular narrative among those trying
to explain away the apparent failure of a new technology. The story
goes that the under-performance is not due to the technology being badly
designed or serving no particular useful purpose, but instead is due to
the lack of a "killer app" that will someday appear to save the day. In
these accounts, technologies frequently spend years languishing until
someone suddenly realizes something like "hey, you could use this to
play music."
Having spent a great deal of the past year or so looking at the history
of this sort of thing, I've come to the conclusion that people normally
hit upon these killer apps very quickly, Often before the technology
itself is viable. Subscription services for broadcasting music to pubic
places and alarm clocks that woke sleepers with music were being tried
long before the tech existed to make either practical.
A couple of side notes on the first story. The evolution of synthesizers
is a bit outside of the scope of our ongoing threads but if the subject
interests you, definitely check out the history of the telharmonium.
Also note the quote from Mark Twain. Twain was fascinated by the new
technology of the era and we should probably devote some future posts to
his take on the subject.
From Scientific American March 9, 1907
From Scientific American April 6, 1907
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