I knew a kid in high school who’s family had spent some time living in a van. I guess the kid had an ongoing joke that they ended up in the van because his dad refused to learn java. Kinda funny, kinda sad. Couldn’t help but think of that when I saw this.
Back home we had a local station, felt like a way of tuning into “the city.” Very few breaks outside of their pledge drives once/twice a year. Listening to the Jazz station here on short drives these days. Very few ads, and some pretty gnarly shit. College radio stations are also pretty easy to find and escape that ad insanity.
Don’t let radio and broadcast TV die quite yet, it’s still very viable, especially as we sort out net neutrality and failsafe systems in cases of emergency.
Superorganism is a great term that kinda applies as well.