It has occurred to me that the way we form our expectations about things that we consume must be radically different than how we did so a few decades ago. Whereas expectation was once informed almost solely upon word of mouth, first-hand experience, and perhaps a glimpse of advertising, the information with which we are now bombarded hourly tells us exactly what we "need" to know. Cars, upcoming films or series, video games, music, appliances, food, and so on and so on.
To wit: When I was a young warthog, I’d spend much of my family-of-six’s weekly trip to our local box store on the video game aisle reading the backs of Nintendo cartridge boxes.