The Living-Room Soup Line

Some things wouldn't be completely different - given that much of the Interstate Highway Act & WPA projects are reaching their natural end-of-lifepan, a huge infrastructure spending act would not be a surprise (and would be the one silver-lining of a full scale depression, that the funds needed for this reconstruction would not have to go through a thousand normal budget battles).

But given that this is an entertainment blog, limiting the discussion to solely the entertainment aspect: it's tough to say. Surely, "free" television would fare best. But if discretionary spending really craters, such that people start cutting entertainment spending...

Cable television: IIRC, cable rates have been plateaued at 50% of homes for something like a decade. It's not inconceivable that a $100 a month digital cable package with a dozen premium channels would be one of the first things to go. If cable viewership started to tumble, there would be a snowball effect as many of the home based shows (cooking, home repairs) turned into syndicated broadcast shows aired during the day/weekend (or, alternatively, on the auxiliary channels the networks have room for in their OTA digital signal space). Furthermore, with no advertising dollars to spend, first run programming moves heavily back to broadcast.

Internet: Now here is where a confluence of things get interesting. Broadband providers, either in an effort to limit costs, or simply because consumers can't afford anything better, limit throughput and total download amounts (those 20 GB/month caps the industry is settling on could be optimistic). TV/movie-on-demand services die stillborn for another decade. (Even YouTube and the like would suffer, both because of bandwidth limitations and because of lack of advertising money.) One nice benefit - internet advertisers scale back on bandwidth heavy ads and go back to simple fixed .gifs rather than the Flash monstrosities of today. Who knows if blogs on a whole survive, just because hosting costs (with no advertising money) suddenly matter again.

Mobile: Also see serious declines due to bandwidth limitations/costs. I would expect to see a preponderance of prepaid no-contract cell phones with additional fees for text-only messaging to become far more common. Social networking sites (Facebook, etc.) also slumber for a decade as users are mainly limited to simple-text versions.

DVRs: Tivo & cable-provider DVRs take a hit as consumers drop them. Expect an uptick in do-it-yourself DVRs (Windows media center, Linux-based programs like Myth-TV). Those DIY systems will probably not be reporting their viewership, thus making Nielsen results even more inaccurate (all they really need internet access for is to get program schedules - and someone will hack them such that CDs burned with program info from the one guy you know with traditional internet access can do the job).

Network television: As the old standby, gets all the advertising money, only one who can afford new programming. Don't expect much though - production costs (special effects!) go by the wayside as low budget cop dramas, courtroom drams, sitcoms, etc. with fixed sets go back to being the norm. It would be like the 80s never died.

Libraries: Who said people won't congregate publicly. Instead everyone will be at the place to be - both because books make a resurgence and because public spending acts revamp the library services' technical systems, as the public goes there to get their old surfing fix filled.