It's really not safe to assume that media companies "leave a lot of money on the table" by not catering to cord cutters. Cord cutters are currently a very small

It's really not safe to assume that media companies "leave a lot of money on the table" by not catering to cord cutters. Cord cutters are currently a very small market, and HBO would lose a lot of leverage over the cable companies. At the margin they'd rather have 1 cable subscription over 1 stand-alone subscription - or even two or three for that matter. The bear case is actually the opposite - they aren't leaving any money on the table now, but it will be at the expense of future growth. They'd be better cutting over to stand-alone sooner, at a loss in current revenue, to better position themselves for the future. That may or may not be the right play, but that's really how you should be reading the current market. Giant companies are often not very customer friendly, but they are rarely leaving obvious money on the table. [Edited for clarity]