More importantly, Brad, the customer is always right in a competitive industry. Good luck getting any sort of customization deal out of you local phone or cable company even though they have the infrastructure in place to make such things trivial.
As always, technology provides possibilities, but not certainties, and turning those possibilities into certainties revolves around political power not technology.

"...revolves around political power not technology."

It seems that someone believes that the government is required in every aspect of our daily lives. Political power is important, but so is the private sector interaction between sellers and buyers.

To Maynard's point, I can only offer the example of friends and family calling plans that grew out of massive analysis of phone call patterns. Just like Brad can get jeans that fit, I can call my mother in Topeka and brother in Sheboygan for less than a call to a generic number in New York.

The failure of the cable system to allow personalization represents a failure of imagination more than anything else. A paid Napster model for music and movies could have increased revenue for content creators and choice for viewers. I would be astonished if fully personalized, customized entertainment wasn't widely available by the end of this decade.