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At some point, Comcast and its buddies are going to be felled by somebody, somewhere who figures out how to offer premium content a la carte. It's hard for Hul
by Gaussian 16y ago
At some point, Comcast and its buddies are going to be felled by somebody, somewhere who figures out how to offer premium content a la carte. It's hard for Hulu to do that now because they don't want to upset the cable people, but if they hang around and keep growing, they may get their shot. And when they do, it's a win for consumers because great content will be rewarded (consumed) and bad content will die much quicker than it does now.
- officemonkey 16y agoApple iTunes sells episodes of many TV shoes the very next day, without commercials. There is no way I will ever spend $70/month for cable, but I would happily spend $70/month for Netflix + Hulu + iTunes because timeshifting is that important to me.
- Gaussian 16y agoGood point on Apple. I was more thinking of specific channel content and making it available a la carte. So, say, $7/month for an ESPN stream.
- falcolas 16y agoI looked into this once, and to watch all the various TV shows we get on Hulu or satellite would cost us somewhere around 3x the cost of satellite. $2-3 an episode is just too much if you follow more than a handful of shows.
- hugh3 16y agoYeah, I'm happy to pay $30 a season for Mad Men, since that's the only show I'd be watching on cable anyway. Well, that plus Doctor Who. Is there any legal way I can legally get Doctor Who without shelling out a thousand bucks a year to Comcast for a million hours of other shite I don't want?
- officemonkey 16y agoWell, there's Netflix: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doctor_Who/70142441 http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doctor_Who/70142441 Do you mean brand-new episodes? I suppose you could go to the BBC site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw) and fake a UK HTTP header.
- kenjackson 16y agoComcast is in an odd position in that they own the pipe to many homes, plus are the cable provider, and own NBC and a bunch of cable channels. Seems unlikely they can be snuck up on. I think the only for it to happen is for the government to hold one arm behind their back. OR some independent web-based channels just take off in a huge way. Tough though since I think most of the best writers, directors, and actors are beholden to the networks and major studios. No one wants to give up their livelihood so that you can watch free TV.
- Gaussian 16y agoAlso a good point on Comcast. But just because they own both pipes doesn't mean a revolution couldn't be kindled in one of them (the net pipe).
- kenjackson 16y agoWell what I suspect will happen is that the Comcast pipe will become less important. LTE bandwidth is pretty incredible (at least with little congestion). The Verizon pipe becomes a lot more important. Comcast and Verizon join forces and stifle net neutrality to keep any such revolution from happening. :-)
- sukuriant 16y agoA revolution will still happen, Comcast and Co will just lose out on it. Whenever people want something bad enough, they will find a way to get around the bars that stop them, and get it.
- kenjackson 16y agoReally? Where's the huge revolution on getting us off of fossil fuels? Where are the fuel cell cars? Big oil has largely single handedly stopped a revolution over the past 30 years and I see no signs of change. Never underestimate the power of money in stopping revolutions -- especially when it comes to leisure activity.