14 ms·

The Next Chapter

193 points by sc90 12y ago

fedoreo 12y ago
Redditor here. It was about time. tips fedora Edit: why the downvotes? Please upvote for visibility. Edit2: come on guys, 4 downvotes, why? Explain before blatantly downvoting.
- fabiandesimone 12y ago
  Tips fedora and upvote for visibility? Oh boy.
  - fedoreo 12y ago
    That is our inside joke. My fellow redditors will understand.
    - seren 12y ago
      Inside jokes, +1, etc are usually considered as noise and are religiously downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - briandear 12y ago
      This isn't Reddit.
      - woof 12y ago
        Not yet. Some believe it's their job to "police" other people opinions based on character count and agreement. I believe they are wrong.
        lmm 12y ago
        It's all our job to upvote good posts and downvote bad posts. And that was a bad post.
    - kefka 12y ago
      I'm also a reddit user. The problem is your post is contentless, and adds nothing to the conversation. I also notice on Reddit, where there X1000 replies to a post, %90 of them are "me too" or variants on that. So, I end up reading Reddit's main tech forums, but come here to post. * Well, except this: http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/ http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... ~~ Thalmic is banned to be discussed in HN. So I posted it there instead.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- TimJRobinson 12y ago
  You're being downvoted because your comment adds nothing to the conversation. Hacker news tries to maintain a high signal to noise ratio.
  - nhstanley 12y ago
    It looks like we have some trolls in here. Not very good ones.
    - jondr 12y ago
      This was a troll account too. It seems that other responses here took it at face value, which is unfortunate as the troll got a sincere reaction out of some Hacker News users. The original comment has since been removed but it was a few lines done in the style of a stereotypical Reddit user: A smug, pseudo-intellectual, Fedora wearing faux-gentleman. This stereotype is widespread on reddit as a mockery of the kind of people that supposedly use the site, even if the parody has been blown out of all proportion by people parroting its in-jokes. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between Hacker News and reddit users, so for the benefit of anyone who isn't familiar with the parody, this was just a parody and a troll. They do this to try and deliberately discredit the site. The comment section for almost any external link posted to major subreddits, particularly YouTube videos, rapidly fills up with parody accounts doing this. All doffing their hats, scratching their neckbeards, and professing their atheistic allegiance to reddit's intellectual paradise. Given how serious some HN users are about preserving the quality of the comments section you probably seem like a pretty enticing target for provoking. If you see someone referencing reddit, Fedoras, and the tipping of those Fedoras, probably best to ignore them.
  - marincounty 12y ago
    Like hiding important stories that hit on important topics like technology, privacy, the constitution, potential backmail, etc.; The Uber story. I guess ran it's course? I guess the Uber CEO threat story was filled with your physics lingo? I liked this site better when it didn't have such finicky Moderators, and people who think HN is somekind of Technology Court, or a way to kiss up to the right people? It just another site like Reddit--with fiercely loyal Moderators, and members who are too quick to downvote anything they think they can spot that mildly violates the violates "The Rules". I think some moderators/users need to put away the Code, and take the Police examination. Officers are great at spotting those pesky violations--some real, some imagined. As to this tech speak(modern day cliches)--"signal to noise ratio". I once had English teacher spend an entire session on cliches in writting and speach; he finished with, "Just don't use them." You will thank me later in life. While I'm at it the word Troll, and the act of Hell Flaming; yea--let's all act like 13 year old girls. Oops--I said a no, no. Block my IP Fancy Boys--you would be doing me a favor.
- kcorbitt 12y ago
  You're probably genuinely confused about why you're getting downvotes, and I'm sorry about that. Hacker News, like any group, has a particular culture. If you're brave enough to stick around after the onslaught you're getting right now you'll find that posts that are longer and more thoughtful tend to be appreciated much more than short drive-by comments. For example, you might have explained why "it was about time" -- was there anything in their business practices that you particularly disagree with, or did you just mean that this seemed inevitable after losing in the Supreme Court?
bhouston 12y ago
Not surprising. This played out in Canada back in 1999/2000 in a similar fashion: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICraveTV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICraveTV - http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1999/12/33093 http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1999/12/33093 - http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-237450.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-237450.html ICraveTV was less ambitious than Aereo as well, as it had no DVR functionality, and it still got taken into the courts until they gave up.
- yaur 12y ago
  The biggest difference with Aero is that a bunch of their staff was lawyers and they had the financial backing to bring it to the supreme court. Without that any Aero like service is a non-starter.
lnlyplnt 12y ago
The best case for aereo was that they used their hack of the copyright system to eventually lobby to change the laws and become "legit". IMO there were always pretty slim chances of that happening. Still sad though, I hate the current copyright system as much as anyone.
unidan 12y ago
Redditor here. I think this just goes to show how fighting the copyright system is futile. Better focus on doing the right things instead of doing things right. tips fedora
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
DevX101 12y ago
I listened to a talk by an Aereo exec at SXSW and he made it clear then that there was no plan B. This was an all or nothing fight. Unfortunately the Supreme Court squashed them, but they really could have changed the world had the ruling gone the other way. ABC, NBC, CBS, and all the other broadcast networks would have had to change their business model and adapt or slowly die like the Blockbusters of the world. Despite the fact that it didn't work out, I respect teams like this with ambitious goals that put everything on the line without compromise. Kudos to the team and investors that supported Aereo.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Yes, changed the world by making it legal to build a business off someone else's content that you got for free through a legal hack. Tragic it didn't work out. The Blockbuster analogy is frankly insulting to people who built real technology for video delivery. Blockbuster went bankrupt because technology made their middle-man position obsolete. In contrast, there is nothing obsolete about making content. Even in the face of modern technology that makes content creation cheap, peoples' demand for high-quality studio content is higher than ever.
  - wdewind 12y ago
    >Yes, changed the world by making it legal to build a business off someone else's content that you got for free through a legal hack. Tragic it didn't work out. I think I mostly agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate: this is broadcast television. It's already being given away for free. I could easily and legally build a kit to record this broadcast without a cable box/official dvr. I could also rewatch that stuff any time legally. In theory I could legally pay someone to do this for me, head over and pick up the DVDs/VHS tapes in person and rewatch them myself. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but up until this point it's all legal right? But doing all this over the internet is suddenly illegal? (Or is it the point where I pay someone else to do it for me? Either way seems kind of arbitrary to me...)
    - iolsantr 12y ago
corbinpage 12y ago
This is such a shame. Aereo was an important part of my cord cutting strategy here in NYC. I can still get a lot of content from Roku + Chromecast but can't get the nationally broadcast channels (antennas won't work for my apartment location). Seems so backwards to me. I can't wait for an Aereo replacement if anyone knows of one.
- colinbartlett 12y ago
  Seems like that's the point: There is no legal replacement. Now, I'd love to hear about some kind of non-legal replacement. Like some kind of crowd-sourced antenna array that makes it difficult to target and shut down.
throwaway1592 12y ago
While I applaud aereo's challenging of the law and twist on the law to create something. The outcome is correct! I read every day on hacker news; copyright laws are wrong, too long, not fair... I do not see it the same way. The hacker news community is a community who creates many things themselves; many of the community has chosen the path to give open licenses to their creation. This is their right and thankfully they do it. But. All things are not equal; while i think the giving open licenses to software benefits everyone. I do not see mandating open licenses and wide use of "The Arts" to do the same. Creation needs to be a struggle. Taking someone else thing and modifying it is an easy path to create something. It also damages the original creation. Software and Art are NOT the same thing. Because software industry has chosen a different path should not mandate everything do the same. Taking the collection of Marvel comic's characters and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and creating a movie would also be cool, but it damages the original. It also by-passes the true meaning of greatness; Original. We as a society have in the last few decades valued bullshit Art over copyright and originality. Why? because it is easy and gives a short amount of pleasure. Great things to not need marketing. Tolkien does not need marketing. He and his family (example) should be compensated forever. there should be no termination to it and his family should profit from it forever. We should never take away the rights of the people who create things. If is their choice to give openness to them.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- untilHellbanned 12y ago
  This is important for people to read. Thanks.
- lentil_soup 12y ago
  Why should the family of Tolkien be compensated forever? What have they done to suddenly be entitled to this? Also, how does mixing and modifying things damage the original? The original is still there and you can appreciate it without worrying about stuff someone else has done with it. That is specially true in software that's what makes it such a great medium.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mp99e99 12y ago
This is very sad for US consumers.
laichzeit0 12y ago
Did Aereo as part of it's technology have the ability to strip out ads from content? Because honestly that's the only reason I haven't watched tv/cable whatever in years. Can't be bothered to waste my time on non-content when it's easier to just download a torrent and watch it via Plex. Or is this more aimed at sport, which necessarily needs to be "live" mostly?
- patja 12y ago
  I remain a diehard SageTV user primarily for the ability to run Comskip on all of my recordings to detect and then auto-skip all commercials on playback. Previously I used ReplayTV to do the same, as well as a JVC SVHS recorder that had commercial detection and skipping capability.
- look_lookatme 12y ago
  And do you send the "tv/cable whatever" companies a check for whatever you think the content is worth? Otherwise you are just a thief.
  - gareim 12y ago
    I hope you don't use Adblock.
    - look_lookatme 12y ago
      I don't.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    Sure, I would, if they accepted such a feature.
twelvedigits 12y ago
I don't think many people had the opportunity to use Aereo. They had a decent presence in New York City, and as the company expanded across the country reporters cited customer numbers in the mid five figures. As an Aereo user, let me tell you what you missed out on: one of the most amazing products I've ever used. Aereo "worked." It worked like magic. First, it lived up to its claim. You could stream live, broadcast television to your phone or computer, and you could AirPlay it to your television. Everything was in HD. It worked incredibly well. So many video products fail to deliver on the user experience, or the video is choppy, or it crashes all the time. Aereo's software had its struggles, but it worked far more often than not. I could have people over and stream the Super Bowl and never worry that Aereo would crap out. Aereo also worked remarkably well during Hurricane Sandy. I live in Brooklyn, and Aereo's Brooklyn HQ was less than a mile from my apartment, but we streamed Aereo until we went to sleep that night. Considering reports that their antennae sucked a ton of power, that's incredible on a night when power was out all across the city. I also interviewed with the company in 2013 for a business development role. Everyone that I met was really great. They treated me well during the process while clearly balancing a million things, including their legal concerns. I really, really wanted to work there, but it wasn't a fit for a lot of reasons, their uncertain future being one of them. When my girlfriend told me that they were filing for bankruptcy, I was sad. This is innovative technology that worked for consumers, squashed by antiquated government regulation and a highly litigious, innovation-resistant, influential media industry. Progress, halted. A winning product that could have delighted millions, squashed.
- rayiner 12y ago
  What is antiquated about the idea that you don't get to use other peoples' valuable content without paying for it? Look: the valuable product here is the content. All the technology can do is get in the way. It's great Aereo's technology got in the way less than its competitors, but that still doesn't mean people found the technology itself valuable. The content is what matters. The content is what delights consumers. Given that reality, I think it's absurd to say that regulations protecting the people who create the content, the product without which the whole downstream ecosystem of streaming services and content consumption devices are utterly irrelevant, it's absurd to say those regulations are antiquated.
jcromartie 12y ago
http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
alexggordon 12y ago
Sad news. I'm not sure what their next business step will be, or if this is it, but I really do hope they open source anything they decide won't be a part of their future products.
thiagoperes 12y ago
Meanwhile, live and on-demand HD online streaming is already a thing for YEARS in Peru: http://play.tuteve.tv http://play.tuteve.tv
geographomics 12y ago
I wonder if they could have got away with it, had they not included the DVR feature and just strictly rebroadcast in real-time. As it was, they were too akin to something like The Pirate Bay to not get some sort of legal bruising.
gergles 12y ago
This is yet another title change that removes context and makes it less difficult to understand why I want to read the article or comments. I really wish there was something beyond a mechanical "original titles only beep boop robot here" method for article titles.
- dang 12y ago
  It might help to consider the domain name part of the title. When I read this one that way, it doesn't seem to me to lack context. I understand why the title changes sometimes seem mechanical, but in reality that is far from the case. Sample bias plays a huge role here, and rightly so, because titles and title edits shouldn't be the locus of attention. Unfortunately, though, when most of the data goes unnoticed, the remaining sliver of cases creates a misleading picture. I'm not sure what we can do about this.
yonran 12y ago
It seems that the Supreme Court took issue with the fact that Aereo operated not only the hardware, but also the DVR software (with similar functionality to that offered by the cable companies) that transmitted the copyrighted performance to subscribers. I wonder whether it would be legal to offer nothing but VMs in the cloud that happened to have a tuner attached, and let a separate company sell DVR software that records the TV show and transmits it privately. There must be some line between renting out one’s hardware and infringing copyright; Aereo just went a bit too far.
davidholmesnyc 12y ago
Aereo was great when I used it. I even tried applying to work there because I was super interested in their service. I only had one bad experience and it was trying to watch the SuperBowl using Aereo. It wasn't bad but wasn't great (freezing,buffering,slow speeds on a fios Connection) . I completely understood that it was a big national event and didn't hold it against them. It probably wasn't even their fault but their bandwidth providers was probably being hammered also.Unfortunately, because of that I ended up canceling and getting Fios TV.Mainly,because I hosted a Superbowl part at my house and everyone was upset at the stream so I ended up getting Fios TV that way for future events/parties I didn't have to worry about a buffer or people being upset again. Regardless I love what they stood for and used the service a lot when I had it. It's sad there's no real alternative.
afxjzs 12y ago
Pretty awesome example of greed and money beating out innovation and common sense.
guyzero 12y ago
Anyone who wants a similar product/service can check out Tablet TV: http://tablet-tv.com/ http://tablet-tv.com/ A $100 device that transcodes OTA signals and sends them to your tablet. They're launching next month in the Bay Area.
DenisM 12y ago
A Napster moment for TV? Having squashed a single company they could deal with, the TV industry may end up having to contend with some sort of P2P TV rebroadcast.

193 points by sc90 12y ago

Redditor here. It was about time. tips fedora Edit: why the downvotes? Please upvote for visibility. Edit2: come on guys, 4 downvotes, why? Explain before blatantly downvoting.

fabiandesimone 12y ago
Tips fedora and upvote for visibility? Oh boy.
- fedoreo 12y ago
  That is our inside joke. My fellow redditors will understand.
  - seren 12y ago
    Inside jokes, +1, etc are usually considered as noise and are religiously downvoted. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - briandear 12y ago
    This isn't Reddit.
    - woof 12y ago
      Not yet. Some believe it's their job to "police" other people opinions based on character count and agreement. I believe they are wrong.
      - lmm 12y ago
        It's all our job to upvote good posts and downvote bad posts. And that was a bad post.
  - kefka 12y ago
    I'm also a reddit user. The problem is your post is contentless, and adds nothing to the conversation. I also notice on Reddit, where there X1000 replies to a post, %90 of them are "me too" or variants on that. So, I end up reading Reddit's main tech forums, but come here to post. * Well, except this: http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/ http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... ~~ Thalmic is banned to be discussed in HN. So I posted it there instead.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
TimJRobinson 12y ago
You're being downvoted because your comment adds nothing to the conversation. Hacker news tries to maintain a high signal to noise ratio.
- nhstanley 12y ago
  It looks like we have some trolls in here. Not very good ones.
  - jondr 12y ago
    This was a troll account too. It seems that other responses here took it at face value, which is unfortunate as the troll got a sincere reaction out of some Hacker News users. The original comment has since been removed but it was a few lines done in the style of a stereotypical Reddit user: A smug, pseudo-intellectual, Fedora wearing faux-gentleman. This stereotype is widespread on reddit as a mockery of the kind of people that supposedly use the site, even if the parody has been blown out of all proportion by people parroting its in-jokes. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between Hacker News and reddit users, so for the benefit of anyone who isn't familiar with the parody, this was just a parody and a troll. They do this to try and deliberately discredit the site. The comment section for almost any external link posted to major subreddits, particularly YouTube videos, rapidly fills up with parody accounts doing this. All doffing their hats, scratching their neckbeards, and professing their atheistic allegiance to reddit's intellectual paradise. Given how serious some HN users are about preserving the quality of the comments section you probably seem like a pretty enticing target for provoking. If you see someone referencing reddit, Fedoras, and the tipping of those Fedoras, probably best to ignore them.
- marincounty 12y ago
  Like hiding important stories that hit on important topics like technology, privacy, the constitution, potential backmail, etc.; The Uber story. I guess ran it's course? I guess the Uber CEO threat story was filled with your physics lingo? I liked this site better when it didn't have such finicky Moderators, and people who think HN is somekind of Technology Court, or a way to kiss up to the right people? It just another site like Reddit--with fiercely loyal Moderators, and members who are too quick to downvote anything they think they can spot that mildly violates the violates "The Rules". I think some moderators/users need to put away the Code, and take the Police examination. Officers are great at spotting those pesky violations--some real, some imagined. As to this tech speak(modern day cliches)--"signal to noise ratio". I once had English teacher spend an entire session on cliches in writting and speach; he finished with, "Just don't use them." You will thank me later in life. While I'm at it the word Troll, and the act of Hell Flaming; yea--let's all act like 13 year old girls. Oops--I said a no, no. Block my IP Fancy Boys--you would be doing me a favor.
kcorbitt 12y ago
You're probably genuinely confused about why you're getting downvotes, and I'm sorry about that. Hacker News, like any group, has a particular culture. If you're brave enough to stick around after the onslaught you're getting right now you'll find that posts that are longer and more thoughtful tend to be appreciated much more than short drive-by comments. For example, you might have explained why "it was about time" -- was there anything in their business practices that you particularly disagree with, or did you just mean that this seemed inevitable after losing in the Supreme Court?

bhouston 12y ago

Not surprising. This played out in Canada back in 1999/2000 in a similar fashion: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICraveTV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICraveTV - http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1999/12/33093 http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1999/12/33093 - http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-237450.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-237450.html ICraveTV was less ambitious than Aereo as well, as it had no DVR functionality, and it still got taken into the courts until they gave up.

yaur 12y ago
The biggest difference with Aero is that a bunch of their staff was lawyers and they had the financial backing to bring it to the supreme court. Without that any Aero like service is a non-starter.

lnlyplnt 12y ago

The best case for aereo was that they used their hack of the copyright system to eventually lobby to change the laws and become "legit". IMO there were always pretty slim chances of that happening. Still sad though, I hate the current copyright system as much as anyone.

unidan 12y ago

Redditor here. I think this just goes to show how fighting the copyright system is futile. Better focus on doing the right things instead of doing things right. tips fedora

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

DevX101 12y ago

I listened to a talk by an Aereo exec at SXSW and he made it clear then that there was no plan B. This was an all or nothing fight. Unfortunately the Supreme Court squashed them, but they really could have changed the world had the ruling gone the other way. ABC, NBC, CBS, and all the other broadcast networks would have had to change their business model and adapt or slowly die like the Blockbusters of the world. Despite the fact that it didn't work out, I respect teams like this with ambitious goals that put everything on the line without compromise. Kudos to the team and investors that supported Aereo.

rayiner 12y ago
Yes, changed the world by making it legal to build a business off someone else's content that you got for free through a legal hack. Tragic it didn't work out. The Blockbuster analogy is frankly insulting to people who built real technology for video delivery. Blockbuster went bankrupt because technology made their middle-man position obsolete. In contrast, there is nothing obsolete about making content. Even in the face of modern technology that makes content creation cheap, peoples' demand for high-quality studio content is higher than ever.
- wdewind 12y ago
  >Yes, changed the world by making it legal to build a business off someone else's content that you got for free through a legal hack. Tragic it didn't work out. I think I mostly agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate: this is broadcast television. It's already being given away for free. I could easily and legally build a kit to record this broadcast without a cable box/official dvr. I could also rewatch that stuff any time legally. In theory I could legally pay someone to do this for me, head over and pick up the DVDs/VHS tapes in person and rewatch them myself. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but up until this point it's all legal right? But doing all this over the internet is suddenly illegal? (Or is it the point where I pay someone else to do it for me? Either way seems kind of arbitrary to me...)
  - iolsantr 12y ago

corbinpage 12y ago

This is such a shame. Aereo was an important part of my cord cutting strategy here in NYC. I can still get a lot of content from Roku + Chromecast but can't get the nationally broadcast channels (antennas won't work for my apartment location). Seems so backwards to me. I can't wait for an Aereo replacement if anyone knows of one.

colinbartlett 12y ago
Seems like that's the point: There is no legal replacement. Now, I'd love to hear about some kind of non-legal replacement. Like some kind of crowd-sourced antenna array that makes it difficult to target and shut down.

throwaway1592 12y ago

While I applaud aereo's challenging of the law and twist on the law to create something. The outcome is correct! I read every day on hacker news; copyright laws are wrong, too long, not fair... I do not see it the same way. The hacker news community is a community who creates many things themselves; many of the community has chosen the path to give open licenses to their creation. This is their right and thankfully they do it. But. All things are not equal; while i think the giving open licenses to software benefits everyone. I do not see mandating open licenses and wide use of "The Arts" to do the same. Creation needs to be a struggle. Taking someone else thing and modifying it is an easy path to create something. It also damages the original creation. Software and Art are NOT the same thing. Because software industry has chosen a different path should not mandate everything do the same. Taking the collection of Marvel comic's characters and Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and creating a movie would also be cool, but it damages the original. It also by-passes the true meaning of greatness; Original. We as a society have in the last few decades valued bullshit Art over copyright and originality. Why? because it is easy and gives a short amount of pleasure. Great things to not need marketing. Tolkien does not need marketing. He and his family (example) should be compensated forever. there should be no termination to it and his family should profit from it forever. We should never take away the rights of the people who create things. If is their choice to give openness to them.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
untilHellbanned 12y ago
This is important for people to read. Thanks.
lentil_soup 12y ago
Why should the family of Tolkien be compensated forever? What have they done to suddenly be entitled to this? Also, how does mixing and modifying things damage the original? The original is still there and you can appreciate it without worrying about stuff someone else has done with it. That is specially true in software that's what makes it such a great medium.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mp99e99 12y ago

This is very sad for US consumers.

laichzeit0 12y ago

Did Aereo as part of it's technology have the ability to strip out ads from content? Because honestly that's the only reason I haven't watched tv/cable whatever in years. Can't be bothered to waste my time on non-content when it's easier to just download a torrent and watch it via Plex. Or is this more aimed at sport, which necessarily needs to be "live" mostly?

patja 12y ago
I remain a diehard SageTV user primarily for the ability to run Comskip on all of my recordings to detect and then auto-skip all commercials on playback. Previously I used ReplayTV to do the same, as well as a JVC SVHS recorder that had commercial detection and skipping capability.
look_lookatme 12y ago
And do you send the "tv/cable whatever" companies a check for whatever you think the content is worth? Otherwise you are just a thief.
- gareim 12y ago
  I hope you don't use Adblock.
  - look_lookatme 12y ago
    I don't.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Sure, I would, if they accepted such a feature.

twelvedigits 12y ago

I don't think many people had the opportunity to use Aereo. They had a decent presence in New York City, and as the company expanded across the country reporters cited customer numbers in the mid five figures. As an Aereo user, let me tell you what you missed out on: one of the most amazing products I've ever used. Aereo "worked." It worked like magic. First, it lived up to its claim. You could stream live, broadcast television to your phone or computer, and you could AirPlay it to your television. Everything was in HD. It worked incredibly well. So many video products fail to deliver on the user experience, or the video is choppy, or it crashes all the time. Aereo's software had its struggles, but it worked far more often than not. I could have people over and stream the Super Bowl and never worry that Aereo would crap out. Aereo also worked remarkably well during Hurricane Sandy. I live in Brooklyn, and Aereo's Brooklyn HQ was less than a mile from my apartment, but we streamed Aereo until we went to sleep that night. Considering reports that their antennae sucked a ton of power, that's incredible on a night when power was out all across the city. I also interviewed with the company in 2013 for a business development role. Everyone that I met was really great. They treated me well during the process while clearly balancing a million things, including their legal concerns. I really, really wanted to work there, but it wasn't a fit for a lot of reasons, their uncertain future being one of them. When my girlfriend told me that they were filing for bankruptcy, I was sad. This is innovative technology that worked for consumers, squashed by antiquated government regulation and a highly litigious, innovation-resistant, influential media industry. Progress, halted. A winning product that could have delighted millions, squashed.

rayiner 12y ago
What is antiquated about the idea that you don't get to use other peoples' valuable content without paying for it? Look: the valuable product here is the content. All the technology can do is get in the way. It's great Aereo's technology got in the way less than its competitors, but that still doesn't mean people found the technology itself valuable. The content is what matters. The content is what delights consumers. Given that reality, I think it's absurd to say that regulations protecting the people who create the content, the product without which the whole downstream ecosystem of streaming services and content consumption devices are utterly irrelevant, it's absurd to say those regulations are antiquated.

jcromartie 12y ago

http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

alexggordon 12y ago

Sad news. I'm not sure what their next business step will be, or if this is it, but I really do hope they open source anything they decide won't be a part of their future products.

thiagoperes 12y ago

Meanwhile, live and on-demand HD online streaming is already a thing for YEARS in Peru: http://play.tuteve.tv http://play.tuteve.tv

geographomics 12y ago

I wonder if they could have got away with it, had they not included the DVR feature and just strictly rebroadcast in real-time. As it was, they were too akin to something like The Pirate Bay to not get some sort of legal bruising.

gergles 12y ago

This is yet another title change that removes context and makes it less difficult to understand why I want to read the article or comments. I really wish there was something beyond a mechanical "original titles only beep boop robot here" method for article titles.

dang 12y ago
It might help to consider the domain name part of the title. When I read this one that way, it doesn't seem to me to lack context. I understand why the title changes sometimes seem mechanical, but in reality that is far from the case. Sample bias plays a huge role here, and rightly so, because titles and title edits shouldn't be the locus of attention. Unfortunately, though, when most of the data goes unnoticed, the remaining sliver of cases creates a misleading picture. I'm not sure what we can do about this.

yonran 12y ago

It seems that the Supreme Court took issue with the fact that Aereo operated not only the hardware, but also the DVR software (with similar functionality to that offered by the cable companies) that transmitted the copyrighted performance to subscribers. I wonder whether it would be legal to offer nothing but VMs in the cloud that happened to have a tuner attached, and let a separate company sell DVR software that records the TV show and transmits it privately. There must be some line between renting out one’s hardware and infringing copyright; Aereo just went a bit too far.

davidholmesnyc 12y ago

Aereo was great when I used it. I even tried applying to work there because I was super interested in their service. I only had one bad experience and it was trying to watch the SuperBowl using Aereo. It wasn't bad but wasn't great (freezing,buffering,slow speeds on a fios Connection) . I completely understood that it was a big national event and didn't hold it against them. It probably wasn't even their fault but their bandwidth providers was probably being hammered also.Unfortunately, because of that I ended up canceling and getting Fios TV.Mainly,because I hosted a Superbowl part at my house and everyone was upset at the stream so I ended up getting Fios TV that way for future events/parties I didn't have to worry about a buffer or people being upset again. Regardless I love what they stood for and used the service a lot when I had it. It's sad there's no real alternative.

afxjzs 12y ago

Pretty awesome example of greed and money beating out innovation and common sense.

guyzero 12y ago

Anyone who wants a similar product/service can check out Tablet TV: http://tablet-tv.com/ http://tablet-tv.com/ A $100 device that transcodes OTA signals and sends them to your tablet. They're launching next month in the Bay Area.

DenisM 12y ago

A Napster moment for TV? Having squashed a single company they could deal with, the TV industry may end up having to contend with some sort of P2P TV rebroadcast.