humanities.philosophy.objectivism

Caught an ad from the National Assn of Broadcasters on the tube this
morning:

"...In fact, digital's so much better, that *by law* all broadcast TV
*has* to be digital by 2009!"

Riiiight. It's so good, you're not allowed to not have it. (Huh?)

This has always seemed weird to me, since I first heard about it -- the
government mandating a new TV standard, and setting a deadline for
everybody to adopt it. Why? Can anybody clear this up for me? What's the
thinking here?

It seems especially silly, as it looks like everybody else is already
going to be getting their TV shows off the 'net, by the time I join the
crowd.

I would have guessed it would be the government forcing broadcasters to
keep up their old analog TV signals unnaturally past their obsolescence
-- to accomodate old folks with wood cabinet console TV's and rabbit-ear
antennas. But from the sound of it, it's the other way around -- unless
it's just a case of "everything not mandatory is forbidden/ everything
not forbidden is mandatory." We don't care what you do, exactly -- so
long as everybody does the same, and everybody does it because they're
forced to.