The idea of someone's likeness being broadcast on some kind of screen has been in sci-fi for a long time. More like facetime - but still. The idea is not new. And people wanted it.
For how long?
This is close to my thoughts based on the title alone. It reminded me of Dvorak's "There is no evidence that people want to use these things." line.
Of course they did.
Shh. We're supposed to pretend that no one wanted tvs, just like we pretend that what people wanted were faster horses, rather than to be relieved of the effort of caring for a horse. Get it? The users are dumb.
You don't need to pretend. Who wanted TVs before they were invented?
Anyone that had seen a film? The reaction to early TVs was not "nobody is asking for this":