When the animated comedy “Futurama” debuted in 1999, it peered a full 1,000 years into the future, following 20th-century pizza delivery guy Philip J. Fry (Billy West) on his accidental trip to the year 3000. 24 years later, the culty, less mainstream show from “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening has slowly but surely chipped away at that thousand-year gap. It may not have (yet) survived a full millennium, but there are countless technological breakthroughs over the past quarter-century that even an imaginatively far-flung satire has failed to predict.
One such change: the streaming-TV revolution, currently experiencing demand-for-growing pains and strike-related strife.