[opendtv] Re: Users as Toast: The Blocking of Google TV

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:40:03 -0600

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

>> Sorry, but that's not the way I see it. The original first and
>> second parties were the congloms and the audience. Before
>> Internet TV became an issue, the colluding third parties were
>> the MVPDs and CE manufacturers who had a stake in building
>> proprietary equipment only for one or more of the MVPDs. 

> Amazing...
>
> consumers in collusion with the oligopolies that are
> screwing them...

Only because you are fixated against congloms could you possibly interpret that 
as what I was saying. There is and was no collusion between congloms and 
audience, Craig. There is simply a marketplace of media companies competing to 
sell products to customers. The funny business happened later, when 
monopolistic delivery systems took hold. And by the way, your "spectrum 
utility" idea would have created a similar umbillical system, where no such 
thing is necessary or desirable in the OTA medium.

> So its the consumers fault for watching TV, and migrating to the
> MVPDs when OTA broadcasters started moving their best content to
> cable then buying all of the cable networks that people moved to
> cable for, so they would not have to watch the crap on the
> broadcast networks.

Maybe you're starting to get it. Less of that lemming behavior from consumers 
would have caused the new networks, now available only on MVPDs, to find other 
distribution pipes. Certainly could happen now, what with the much greater 
channel capacity (i.e. program stream capacity) of OTA TV, not to mention the 
Internet.

> Google and Apple are trying to break up the "Empire"

No, Craig. They are instead trying to create their own empires, much as the 
MVPDs did. How do you not see that? They are trying to build empires, using as 
leverage the content owned by someone else. Obviously, the content owners don't 
have to like it. Nor do we.

> Stop whining and tell us how to break up the real gatekeepers so
> that real markets for content can thrive...

Unwalled systems. It's not that difficult. You even used to champion this 
yourself, at least one aspect of it, until Apple made you change your tune. 
Separate content from carriage, educate people to avoid umbillical systems 
unless absolutely necessary (like water, sewage, and powerlines). If 
umbillicals are unavoidable, then they have to be heavily regulated, like the 
aforementioned utilities.

It's astonishing to me that someone who keeps talking about how Internet 
distribution democratizes the media is so happy to have third parties 
attempting to wall it up all over again.

Bert
 
 
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