Changing Everything ⇒

Yestreday, GigaOM published an article with the ambitious headline “Why Arrested Development on Netflix could change everything.” Everything!

Here’s Liz Shannon Miller trying to make the case:

Arrested‘s rebirth, over four years in the works, has the potential to completely change the game in terms of the way we regard web content in the future.

The game! Completely!

It’s a long time until the spring of 2013, but looking forward it’s hard to imagine a more important signpost for the convergence of television and the web than Arrested Development. If it succeeds, it’ll legitimize a whole new distribution platform and business model.

Who hit publish on this?

I’m as excited as anyone to see new episodes of Arrested Development, but the fact that it will “air” and may even be watched by millions says little about the Web as a distribution outlet.

I think it will be a long time before Netflix lets us know whether or not this experiment is a success. Yes, Arrested may be to Netflix what The Sopranos was to HBO, but the fact that Miller plans to call in sick and watch the show in her pajamas with “hundreds and thousands of other devotees” has little bearing on that. Now, if they weren’t already Netflix subscribers to begin with, that’d be something huge.

There’s a great conversation to have about what Netflix is up to. Miller isn’t having it, though.