The smart (or jaded) money on the internet sees video (remember, video has been the next big thing for the past five or six years now) as curiously retro. The internet overcomes the inefficiency of its vast blather because you can skim it and skip it – we are all negligent readers now – but video is clumsy because you actually have to watch it. While a quick glance at a first sentence can identify the worth of a commenter, with video, you’re stuck.

The breakthrough feels close. If everybody carries a mobile recording and uploading device, doesn’t that ability and behavior beg to be harnessed? What megalomaniac could resist that? As every internet citizen has become a self-confident writer and diarist, won’t they also become dedicated broadcasters? As social platforms teeter, I suspect this will not so much cause the intrepid to pull back, but to see weakness as opportunity. Moving pictures will not be denied. He who controls video controls the media.