3 ms·

It's more complicated than sticking to outdated business practices. It's a classic innovator's dilemma. People pay to subscribe to HBO (tv). If people could ge

It's more complicated than sticking to outdated business practices. It's a classic innovator's dilemma. People pay to subscribe to HBO (tv). If people could get a lot of that content by subscribing online, for cheaper, then lots of people will switch over. Which means HBO disrupts it's own cashcow moneymaker with something that makes less money.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
So who says it has to be "cheaper"? Charge the same amount for the streaming service as they get from the cable companies. The problem is not HBO, the problem is Comcast. If HBO offered all their premium content a la carte over the internet for competitive prices, HBO would be fine. They would make even more money than they do now -- except that the cable companies would collectively go berserk and retaliate, the fear of which is what stops them. If the DoJ had any interest in not looking like a collection of apathetic former RIAA lawyers there would be an antitrust probe into this sort of thing by now.
- zacharycohn 14y ago
  Could HBO really justify charging 4x or 5x or 10x what Netflix charges with a fraction of the catalog? No. People would ridicule them.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    Have you seen the Netflix streaming catalog? It's terrible. People would pay substantially more than that just for current episodes of the HBO original series, to say nothing of the movies -- which they already do pay for the cable package. Why do you suspect they wouldn't do the same over the internet if the choice was available? Once again, they would likely pay even more, because they could then more easily cancel their entire cable subscription while paying HBO more than HBO is currently receiving today from the cable companies and come out ahead. The primary problem is that HBO would have to transition their subscribers to their internet service all at once or they would lose subscriptions. There are still plenty of HBO subscribers watching on analog TVs with no internet attached to them, and HBO can't take steps to make itself independent from the cable companies without causing them to retaliate by depriving it of all that subscription revenue.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago

So who says it has to be "cheaper"? Charge the same amount for the streaming service as they get from the cable companies. The problem is not HBO, the problem is Comcast. If HBO offered all their premium content a la carte over the internet for competitive prices, HBO would be fine. They would make even more money than they do now -- except that the cable companies would collectively go berserk and retaliate, the fear of which is what stops them. If the DoJ had any interest in not looking like a collection of apathetic former RIAA lawyers there would be an antitrust probe into this sort of thing by now.

zacharycohn 14y ago
Could HBO really justify charging 4x or 5x or 10x what Netflix charges with a fraction of the catalog? No. People would ridicule them.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  Have you seen the Netflix streaming catalog? It's terrible. People would pay substantially more than that just for current episodes of the HBO original series, to say nothing of the movies -- which they already do pay for the cable package. Why do you suspect they wouldn't do the same over the internet if the choice was available? Once again, they would likely pay even more, because they could then more easily cancel their entire cable subscription while paying HBO more than HBO is currently receiving today from the cable companies and come out ahead. The primary problem is that HBO would have to transition their subscribers to their internet service all at once or they would lose subscriptions. There are still plenty of HBO subscribers watching on analog TVs with no internet attached to them, and HBO can't take steps to make itself independent from the cable companies without causing them to retaliate by depriving it of all that subscription revenue.