[opendtv] Re: FCC on HD Radio
- From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 19:12:21 -0400
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> Piracy was and IS nothing more than an attempt by consumers to
> say they have had enough!
That is the excuse thieves always use, when they try to rationalize their
actions.
> Apple provided a period of exclusivity for what was to become a
> ground breaking device, in return for the freedom to create a REAL
> marketplace for services that could operate on the device. AT&T
> benefited via MUCH higher monthly average revenues per subscriber,
Wow. You have spent all this time to explain why collusion may be beneficial to
the industries involved, without even realizing it. Like the Wikipedia article
explains, Craig, collusion is sometimes legal. It's up to consumers to figure
it out and to resist it, in those cases. Or to pay the price, and stop whining
about it (e.g. complaining about retrans consent fees).
Who knows why you didn't see the parallel with a hypothetical GM buying up toll
roads.
> Because the service was developed using a public resource with a
> very basic bargain - no fees for the content... just watch the
> commercials you morons. Cable HELPED broadcasters grow their
> audience, then started to compete...
Wake up to the real world, Craig. The anti-competitive distribution models,
that you insist on championing, raised and raised and raised their rates, using
conglom content as leverage. And you fail to understand why the congloms said
enough? When did these congloms start demanding subscription fee kickbacks,
Craig? Give me the year. Then compare that year with the time when MVPD rates
started to climb.
> You suggest taking away ALL of the walled distribution models.
> I'm ready.
No you aren't. All I hear from you is ideas about more walled gardens, or
knee-jerk opposition to insuring that the Internet remain unwalled.
The point I had tried to make, and you seem to have missed, was that the whole
retrans consent increase argument WOULD NOT EXIST except for the existence of
walled gardens. Let me spell it out for you.
Take a cable company broadband service. If the cable company sees people
bailing out of its TV walled garden, in favor of Internet distribution model,
what will its next step be? It's so obvious.
The next step will be, the cable system broadband service will block access to
Hulu, to Netflix, to the abc.com and fox.com sites. Telco broadband services
can do likewise. Then they will create their own TV server network, and will
sell people PKI certificates for access. For the more premium material, these
ISPs will require more expensive certificates.
In effect, the walled garden that is an ISP network will behave very much the
same as the traditional MVPD, including tiered subscrtiption rates, including
the retrans consent issues from the congloms. For the same reasons as today's
MVPDs.
Now contrast this with having a totally neutral broadband network. The congloms
have their own sites. Even if the congloms decide to have a combined site like
Hulu, it's all in-house for them. No retrans consent questions can possibly
arise. How could they? The TV content owners do their own thing. They have no
leverage to demand anything more. But you have to have a neutral medium first.
You seem to have this idea that Internet distribution alone solves the problem.
It does not. No one can be naive enough to think that ISP networks will forever
be "neutral," unless something stronger than the traditionally complacent
consumers makes them that way.
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.
Other related posts:
