The microeconomics of Click

You know, the new Adam Sandler movie; try this site for the trailer.  The guy has a universal remote control device which he can use to Pause, Fast Forward, or Rewind reality, rather than TV.  How much would you pay for such an item?  And what would you do with it?

Of course you would use it to prevent accidents, such as car crashes.  You would likely die of old age.  I wouldn’t use fast forward much.  If you want more money, Pause could help you shuffle through confidential papers and garner inside information for trading (or are the papers glued to the desk and thus unreadable?). 

Voyeurism is another possibility, as explored by Nicholson Baker’s much-underrated The Fermata.  Here is one good excerpt from the book.  Here is a summary of the basic plot.

I will predict the movie argues that this device is more dangerous than useful and that Adam Sandler must give it up to find happiness with the ever-so-cute woman of his dreams.  Given self-constraint issues, I have yet to find a value-maximizing scenario for the device, can you?  Somewhere in here is a lesson about strong temporal complements and perhaps business cycles as well.

Here is my previous post The Macroeconomics of Superman.