I think Dilbert is hilarious. The comic strip’s creator, Scott Adams, has incredible insight into everyday life.

More than a decade ago, he showed the cartoon’s title character in a grocery store. A clerk asked Dilbert, a white-collar, micromanaged engineer by day, if he wanted to sign up for the store’s loyalty card so he could save on purchases.

His reply went something like this: “So you want my personal information, which you’ll then use to track me and market to me, and in return I get the manufacturers’ rebates that I’ve always received? And if I don’t give you my data, then you keep the money?”

It illustrated that classic moment when a consumer realizes he or she is boxed in.

Now, loyalty cards are everywhere. If you don’t have one for your local grocer, you spend hundreds of dollars more than you should every year, because the store keeps the discounts and rebates.

In recent years Adams has turned his attention to the language of persuasion.

He was one of the first to predict Trump’s election success. Not because he favored Trump’s policies over anyone else’s, but because he recognized that candidate Trump’s language was meant to incite, and to persuade with emotions (Lyin’ Ted, Low Energy Jeb, etc.) instead of explain cold policy statements.

It worked.

I’ve often thought about Adams’ study of persuasive language as I looked across the spectrum of everyday life.

And, now more than ever, it struck me that we have front-row seats to the collision of two megatrends that have permeated our daily lives: the widespread use of video, and persuasion.

As with most things, together these forces can be used for good or bad.

The video part has been long in the making. For decades we’ve delivered content over the internet, but most of it was static. The information wasn’t engaging or consistently updated. For that to happen, we needed much faster connectivity. As we moved from modem, to DSL, to cable modem, to fiber optic, video streaming nationwide became a reality.