Press “Play”

A phonograph record is played differently than the radio or an 8-track cassette. A (compact) cassette, a VHS cassette and a CD are played a bit more similarly. A CD and a DVD play exactly the same, in more ways than one. And a YouTube video and a podcast and streaming music all play identically.

Conceptually, for the user, there has ceased to be any difference at all between playing speech, music or video because the media has effectively disappeared and the interfaces have unified under the same abstraction. We tap the “play” button and off we go. The universality of that interaction is enormously efficient and convenient for everyone.

What has not gotten any easier—indeed, what has become paradoxically more tedious, technical and yet somehow more manageable—is troubleshooting the system when it doesn’t work. An internet search of the troubling symptoms can helpfully reveal a potential problem with your OS, a workaround for the app or maybe even a limitation of the hardware. Or maybe you just don’t have enough bandwidth at the moment.

When things are working properly, they are all alike; when they malfunction, they each malfunction in their own very specific ways.