You’re right that the title is a little hyperbolic. More accurately, stated preferences tell us different things from revealed preferences and I understand that choice modelling work these days often uses both. Most of the time we don’t have the luxury that Netflix have of observing both so it would be foolhardy to discard the stated preferences, even if they are likely to be ‘aspirational’ in some cases.

I agree with a lot of what you say about reality TV: costs are important in determining how much of it there is. Essentially, costs determine the supply curve and preferences determine the demand. The final quantity provided depends on the interaction of the two, so they’re not really separable. The business benefit is all about how much people choose to watch them, after all.

On lowbrow vs highbrow I’ve always loved Yes, Minister’s take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA

Also with something like Realty TV, there are a lot of people with revealed preferences for it, but stated preferences otherwise. But the thing driving the overwhelming amount of Reality TV content is the cost/benefit equation for the business producing the content. People complain about the vast amount of lowbrow TV/film and the pushback is often about revealed preferences. I’m curious about what sort of balance we’d get between low/highbrow content if the business cost/benefit were more equal. You’d maybe get more highbrow content, but more specifically, highbrow content that isn’t so taxing that you would watch it on a wednesday night after work.