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I'm glad you had the balls to say this. It really stumps me when I see everyone basically saying they know better than HBO how to make money. I don't doubt the

I'm glad you had the balls to say this. It really stumps me when I see everyone basically saying they know better than HBO how to make money. I don't doubt the logic and stats behind everyone's reasoning but I do doubt that they know something HBO doesn't. HBO I'm sure has more people working on how to make the company profitable than there are comments in this discussion. There's some entitlement floating around here masked as "better ideas". I have no doubt that HBO wants to make paying for their content as easy as possible but... * they might have done the math and found this way to be more profitable, losses to piracy be damned * it takes a lot of different entities to make a show like Game of Thromes and you better believe that there are pre-existing contracts galore. These pre-existing agreements may be what's keeping the situation as it is now If scenario 1 is correct then that's just tough for us. We'll have to wait or pirate. If we pirate then HBO probably doesn't care anyway or they wouldn't have made watching GoT so damn hard. If scenario 2 is correct then we're placing blame and frustration in the wrong place. At the same time this scenario can vindicate popular opinion around here too. Whatever the case may be, I sincerely doubt HBO doesn't know what they're doing. They absolutely cannot be so incompetent as to not understand that making it impossible to pay for the show will drive people to piracy. As for inconveniencing current customers, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they had a deal with Dish and Cable companies and expected all boxes to be replaced by the time they made this change in their broadcasting. I could be wrong but if HBO truly doesn't get it my head might just explode.

davesims 15y ago
Or it could be a lot of both. HBO certainly must see the writing on the wall for cable, but it would seem they're not being as aggressive as, say, Netflix in deploying on-demand content. But they are positioning themselves. Why else provide online content only as a value-added proposition to full-price cable subscribers? HBO is obviously making moves towards this transition, but the numbers probably just aren't there yet to justify taking the full plunge. It looks to me like they're hedging their bets. Netflix's biggest challenge is content, right? When the time comes, I don't think that's going to be a problem for HBO. Or, maybe their C-levels are just bailing water on the old model. But I kinda doubt it.
ctdonath 15y ago
It really stumps me when I see everyone basically saying they know better than HBO how to make money. Kodak knew how to make money. Everyone thought they knew better - and they were right.
- tptacek 15y ago
  What this comment says is that you don't understand why Kodak got put out of business.
  - ctdonath 15y ago
    I worked at Kodak. I was at the status meeting where they explained they didn't want to tick off film retailers - at which point it was obvious the company was doomed.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      HBO is not in danger of being put out of business by their equivalent of the digital camera, is what I'm saying. (Piracy is not the digital camera of content; digital contracts didn't break contracts, promises, or the law). But: I said it snippily, and ineffectively. I apologize.
      - ctdonath 15y ago
        HBO's equivalent of the digital camera is on-release video streaming. There's a lot of us who just don't & won't have "cable TV", and who are willing to shell out money for access to shows the day they're released. Beholden to the distributor/retailer, HBO isn't doing independent streaming and is releasing discs long after initial release. The public's transition to streaming video is catching on and accelerating, entrenched technologies can be replaced a whole lot faster that most expect, and faced with evaporating audiences the existing distributors will hold HBO to exclusivity contracts. Oh sure it's not the same thing, but I'm seeing & expecting strong parallels. HBO is not too big to fail. Snippy happens, given a soundbite-oriented medium. No prob. You want room 12A, just along the corridor.

davesims 15y ago

Or it could be a lot of both. HBO certainly must see the writing on the wall for cable, but it would seem they're not being as aggressive as, say, Netflix in deploying on-demand content. But they are positioning themselves. Why else provide online content only as a value-added proposition to full-price cable subscribers? HBO is obviously making moves towards this transition, but the numbers probably just aren't there yet to justify taking the full plunge. It looks to me like they're hedging their bets. Netflix's biggest challenge is content, right? When the time comes, I don't think that's going to be a problem for HBO. Or, maybe their C-levels are just bailing water on the old model. But I kinda doubt it.

ctdonath 15y ago

It really stumps me when I see everyone basically saying they know better than HBO how to make money. Kodak knew how to make money. Everyone thought they knew better - and they were right.

tptacek 15y ago
What this comment says is that you don't understand why Kodak got put out of business.
- ctdonath 15y ago
  I worked at Kodak. I was at the status meeting where they explained they didn't want to tick off film retailers - at which point it was obvious the company was doomed.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    HBO is not in danger of being put out of business by their equivalent of the digital camera, is what I'm saying. (Piracy is not the digital camera of content; digital contracts didn't break contracts, promises, or the law). But: I said it snippily, and ineffectively. I apologize.
    - ctdonath 15y ago
      HBO's equivalent of the digital camera is on-release video streaming. There's a lot of us who just don't & won't have "cable TV", and who are willing to shell out money for access to shows the day they're released. Beholden to the distributor/retailer, HBO isn't doing independent streaming and is releasing discs long after initial release. The public's transition to streaming video is catching on and accelerating, entrenched technologies can be replaced a whole lot faster that most expect, and faced with evaporating audiences the existing distributors will hold HBO to exclusivity contracts. Oh sure it's not the same thing, but I'm seeing & expecting strong parallels. HBO is not too big to fail. Snippy happens, given a soundbite-oriented medium. No prob. You want room 12A, just along the corridor.