A few years after the prophetic AT&T “You Will” ad campaign, a regional phone and Internet provider, Qwest, did AT&T one better.
A guy walks into a shabby motel lobby: “What kind of rooms you got?”
Bored motel clerk: “King size.”
Guy: “You got room service?”
Clerk: “Donuts and coffee.”
Guy: “Got entertainment?”
Clerk: “All rooms have every movie ever made in every language, any time, day or night.”
Guy: “How is that possible?”
“Every movie ever made in every language, any time, day or night.” Can you imagine a claim more outlandish than that in 1999, which we almost take for granted now? Not yet every movie in every language, but that’s clearly where we’re heading.
Qwest is long gone. But their Future is here now. And it’s even pretty evenly distributed!
(Interesting aside: just as journalist Thomas Friedman wrote an article quoted in our post on Moore’s Law, he also wrote an article talking about this ad and predicting it will come to pass “a lot sooner than you think.” We’ll see to what extent Friedman appears here in the Future).