Craig Birkmaier wrote: > Put this together with the discussion about whether > the DTV service should be optimized for the Best or > for the average, and the answer is obvious. > > People are willing to PAY for the best, and there > will be many ways to hook them up with the best > content. People are less willing to pay for "Free > TV" but more forgiving about the quality of what they > get for "Free." I think you're missing the point of the article, though. Here are the phases he proposes: 1. Ad-supported broadcast, like today. 2. Ad-supported mailings of DVDs, or DVDs distributed in newspapers and magazines. This cuts out the broadcasters. The ads would only be in the paper or direct mailings, not in the DVDs. 3. Internet free distribution, with follow-on boxed DVD sales of the shows (with additional features as DVDs typically have). This cuts out both broadcasters and advertizers. So here, people are expected to pay for what they have already gotten free. His point is that fans can spread their euphoria enough to convince enough people that they *want* to buy the DVD boxed sets, after having seen the shows. Is there any evidence to show that sale of DVD boxed sets are lucrative enough to make this a sustainable business model? Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.