Parents, Children & The Death Spiral

In my never-ending search for useful metaphors describing the changing world of marketing I have recently started saying that the relationship between brands and consumers (aka people) used to be like a parent and a child.  There was a sort of natural authority based around the assumptions that mummy knows best, and even she didn't, she had all the sweets.  However now, it's a relationship of equals.  And if you don't recognise that fact then all the blogs in the world aren't about to make you a modern parent.  In fact, they will just amplify your need to patronise.  But if that's all a bit domestic for your liking then check out Bob Garfield's latest ruminations in Adage.  I particularly liked the Death Spiral, "in which audience fragmentation and ad-avoidance hardware lead to an exodus of advertisers, leading in turn to an exodus of capital, leading to a decline in the quality of content, leading to further audience defection, leading to further advertiser defection and so on to oblivion."  And  The Buggles quote at the end is spooky....