For most of human history, convenience was something you had to walk toward. When Zenith Electronics introduced the first television remote in 1950, they did not merely spare viewers a trip across the room — they quietly redistributed power within the home, reshaped the economics of broadcasting, and planted the seed of a fragmented attention culture that would bloom for decades. The humble remote control, born of inconvenience and refined through sound waves and infrared light, became one of the quiet architects of modern life.