openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
 ·AT&T Southeast
| No Reason
Why should Comcast be limited to 30% of the potential market? That's an absurd limitation that will hurt competition more than help. Except for very rare situations, CATV providers do not compete with CATV providers, so capping Comcast's (or any provider for that matter) potential market share is not helping anyone. |
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RideRed
Vista needs a popup blocker for Vista
Premium
join:2005-06-18
USA
| said by openbox9  :...so capping Comcast's (or any provider for that matter) potential market share is not helping anyone. Except the consumers.
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There's only 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| The arbitrary cap that prevents an alternative CATV provider from purchasing my CATV provider in no way helps me one bit. In fact, it probably hurts me because now providers aren't allowed to continue to expand and increase service offerings through market efficiencies that might otherwise be available. |
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RideRed
Vista needs a popup blocker for Vista
Premium
join:2005-06-18
USA
1 edit | "Providers" are certainly permitted to expand, but not to the point they can damage the marketplace. Thus far these limits are only affecting Comcast because they gobble up competitors and run the systems into the ground like they did here with ATTB.
The only thing Comcast is efficient with is price increases. In that, they excel.
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There's only 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | And how are they damaging the marketplace? |
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RideRed
Vista needs a popup blocker for Vista
Premium
join:2005-06-18
USA | I've already explained how they could if permitted to exceed the caps. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
| Not really. I fail to see how the marketplace will be injured further by having two non-competing CATV providers and two non-competing telco providers and two competing (for video) sat providers in this country. Your rhetoric of Spice going away because one provider said they won't carry the channel is a non-player because there is competition, even if Comcast, AT&T, and Dish are the only pay video providers in the US. |
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RideRed
Vista needs a popup blocker for Vista
Premium
join:2005-06-18
USA
4 edits | Hardly rhetoric, it's reality. A network can't produce expensive high quality programming unless they reach a lot of paying customers. If Comcast effectively controls the market they can narrow that available customer base to the point that content generators can't make their product.
There is currently competition and content providers can reach subscribers because there is a 30% cap on marketshare. Even if one provider says no, there are enough other providers saying yes to make a go of it. No cap = no competition. It's not rocket science.
Look at the desktop market and how Microsoft was able to abuse their market position. The result, lack of innovation. Were/are there alternatives? Sure, Linux, OS X...but for practical purposes they are still able to harm others with their abuse of their market position (because Windows was the marketplace) and the EU thinks they're continuing to do so. Microsoft controlled access to Windows customers to the detriment of Microsoft's competitors and they got busted for it. With no cap, Comcast could do the same.
Some cable fanboys want to make a Microsoft out of Comcast and nothing good will come from it.
If anything the cap should be lower. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | Well, the fact of the matter is that you do have competition. Unless Comcast buys the telcos and the sat providers, there is more than one provider serving the marketplace. Maybe content providers should begin to innovate and develop a distribution mechanism (IPTV?) if the threat is so great. Bottom line, capping the provider at 30% (or less) market share does not create competition.
If you capped Microsoft's market share at 30% you would have a of pissed off people. |
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RideRed
Vista needs a popup blocker for Vista
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join:2005-06-18
USA
2 edits | It's not about competition, it's about access to subscribers. Linux is "competition" for Windows on the desktop but there aren't enough Linux "subscribers" to make a lot of Linux products profitable to produce. If Microsoft were limited to 30% of the desktop, you would have developers developing more content for competing operating systems including Linux.
If MS were limited to 30% market share, the industry and consumers would be better off for it. It would mean MORE CHOICE for consumers and Microsoft would have to EARN their business rather than get it by default. Not only would consumers be able to get products for obviously superior platforms like Linux and OS X but Microsoft would have to do a much better job with their own products just as they used to do with Office and IE when they were competiting with WordPerfect and Netscape in the early and mid-90's.
If you don't see how Microsoft's domination of the PC industry has done serious damage to innovation and consumer choice (to the point they were sanctioned by both the US gov't and EU) you won't see how Comcast would do the same thing.
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There's only 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't. |
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openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | Glad we agree that it's not about competition. I don't see the "access to subscribers" being an issue either since we're not talking about monopolies here. If Comcast owned all of the capable video delivery mechanisms, then I would begin to agree with your point of view.
As for Microsoft, they were sanctioned (which didn't change a whole a lot btw and what it did change is irrelevant) because of their monopolistic practices of forcing vendors to take anti-competitive measures when building platforms. This is not the same situation as what you're talking about with CATV providers because there is no large-scale monopoly in the pay TV market. Now if Comcast owned 95% of the market and forced Spice to air specific content for specific consumers, then it becomes a similar situation. |
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