On Feb 15, 2014, at 8:06 PM, "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > No one likes to be driven out of business, Craig. I'm sure the town > blacksmith found it hard to stomach too, when cars started showing up. Terrible analogy Bert. People did not go to the blacksmith to test drive a car, then order the car by mail at a deep discount. Blacksmiths had a significant portion of their business eliminated by a fundamental advancement in transportation technology. They did not disappear; they bought trucks and started to drive to the customer to shoe their horses...still do, and they ain't cheap. And it is likely that a few realized that cars and trucks have "feet" that need maintenance too. The smart ones had the opportunity to get into the tire business. > I buy lots of stuff online specifically because it ISN'T available in stores. > Take for example, an OTA TV PVR. Go find one at Best Buy. Instead, the guy in > the blue shirt will try to get you stuck on an MVPD. Me too! Before the Internet I bought specialty stuff from mail order catalogs. Amazon hands off most of the specialty stuff to affiliated stores; if the volume is high enough, and they know because they process every transaction, they start buying and selling the item themselves. In other words Bert, they cut out the "middleman," as the article I cited described. Ruthless, but it appears you support this kind of behavior. > The important take-away being, just like trolleys would have disappeared > anyway, the new equilibrium in retail is bound to include a lot of online > retail. Simply because of its convenience and MUCH greater selection. Get > used to it. And, compete online! Yes Bert. Just about every retailer now competes online, even those with brick and mortar stores. This allows them to sell the specialty products without the expense of local stocking; they can ship to your house or business, or you can save the shipping and pick up your purchase at the store. Sears has been doing much the same with catalogs for more than a century. But Amazon creates a new dilemma. How do you compete with a company that operates without generating profits? You can match price and likely lose money because you are not as efficient, or you can go out of business. And there is still the issue of showrooming. Amazon leverages the overhead of every local store that actually stocks products you can touch and feel. Every online retailer may enjoy this benefit to some extent, but Amazon has turned this into a fundamental part of their business model. > I don't even know what you're saying here. Obviously. That's why you don't get it. > > Making good movies and TV that people actually seek out is expensive. You can > see any number of small time stuff on the Internet, e.g. YouTube, and you can > see lots and lots of free OR paid movies, on the Internet. Not put a dent on > what? Netflix grows, HBO shrinks, cineplex audience is so-so at best most of > the time, and you don't think this is significant? A dent in the Universe? No Bert, a dent in the business model where a handful of companies operate as oligopolies and extract monopoly rents from the content. The content owners leverage their oligopoly to control who gets the opportunity to play in the walled gardens, although the Internet is allowing companies like Netflix to create original content to sell through their service. The content congloms own 90% of the content offered in the walled gardens. They are dominating what is left of the appointment TV business, and using the most desirable "appointment programming" to keep subscribers interested in the bundles. Netflix is just another middleman that they can sell their retreads to to make even more money. Yes there is some concern in Mudville. The MVPDs are starting to lose customers for the first time in history. But losing 100,000 customers out of 100 million is not the end of the world. Unlike Amazon, the MVPDs are extremely profitable, and they still get to make a huge profit from broadband, even if the customer drops the TV bundle. In short they are weathering the storm, and using the Internet to offer customers new services that cost them almost nothing, to keep their value proposition viable; you can now access their walled garden content on your new mobile screens. And they are the gatekeeper for all of the OTT services you like, as you are paying them $30/mo for your overpriced bits. > You still don't get it, Craig. The "destruction" is to > unnecessary/obsolescent middlemen. Not to the content creators. Not in the TV business. There are more middlemen buying the same content, not less. They congloms are more profitable than ever. There is no Amazon eating their lunch; Amazon is one of the new middlemen sending them money. > I don't know how many times I've said this. The congloms create and own the > content. As long as they continue creating the content that people all over > the world want to see, they can't lose. You lose yourself railing against > "oligopolies" and get distracted from the thread! They can't lose Bert because they are a protected oligopoly. Yes the ability to bypass their domination has been enhanced by the Internet, but they can weather this storm and remain extremely profitable for decades to come, as long as the politicians and regulators prop them up. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.