[opendtv] Re: FW: Re: Distribution outside the bundle
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 01:54:09 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> And no TV is set to cable frequencies by default - if they default
> to anything it is the off air RF antenna input.
How would you even know, Craig, since you are the faithful, loyal, long-time
user of cable STBs?
I'll repeat what I said. The tuner in TV sets now, my first encounter being ca.
1992, is set by default to the cable frequencies. If you use an antenna, you
won't be able to get most of the UHF channels, unless you go into the menu and
set it to "antenna" (at first, it was a switch behind the set, by default in
the "cable" position). This is simple fact. I've had to do this first step,
every time, since the early 1990s. Whereas in 1985, I did not have to. You
cannot disagree with the most obvious facts.
> Why does it make sense to demand payment for something you give
> away to a significant portion of your viewers;
Read my lips, Craig. In the US economy, the seller charges whatever price the
customer will bear. Your socialist-sounding agenda, in response to this, is not
convincing. The problem here is not the broadcasters or the congloms. The
problem is the monopolistic pipe folk like you are wedded to, and the insistent
demand that TV network channels be on that monopoly pipe.
> Yes Bert, people wanted access to the Networks. You cannot infer
> that this means they wanted to pay more for something they could
> get for free.
Doesn't matter what people might prefer. Do you pay for your "the bundle,"
Craig? Yes? Then that proves you're willing to pay that subscription fee. Until
you cut the cord, you are simply proving to the congloms and broadcasters, and
all the niche channels, and the overpaid athletes, that you are willing to pay
more.
**All that matters** is what people will agree to shell out. When a service
provider creates the infinite revenue stream for itself, as MVPDs do, or as
Aereo tried to do, by using someone ELSE'S content as bait, that content owner
will demand a piece of that action.
> The Internet is not infinite.
Please inform us what is the maximum number of content troves available on the
Internet. Just for grins, use IPv6 to make that computation. Then tell me why
anyone would need a monopolistic "bundling" model, to reach each user, when
using such a medium.
> Sorry Bert, but early cable technology did not require a monopoly
> on the intent it carried.
Sorry, Craig. Early cable technology was one-way broadcast, single source to
multiple destinations, purely frequency-divided, analog tuners in the STBs, and
only one infrastructure in any given neighborhood.
This is the perfect recipe for a single content gatekeeper, for that gatekeeper
to necessarily have to create a limited set of optional bundles, and for the
content owners to make demands of that one gatekeeper middleman. There is
simply no valid argument you can make against these facts, Craig. The Internet,
instead, invalidates that model.
Bert
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