| reply to phattieg
Re: How hard would it be for cable to offer "a la carte" It's not like buying in bulk because the free market forces have been removed. Your cable rates subsidize the broadcast medium of networks that otherwise would not be viable. To use your analogy, you go to the store to buy coffee and your option is $75 for coffee, no matter how much you want, but you have to take ALL the flavors. What you get is coffee in regular, regular blend, French vanilla (which you hate) and several other flavors like cola flavored coffee, lime-water flavored coffee and cat feces flavored coffee, which nobody wants. Your $75 purchase for a few flavors of coffee you enjoy nets you products you simply throw away and subsidizes people who are making coffee in favors no one wants. Ask yourself, why do the people making cat feces flavored coffee deserve one penny of the money? Is it just so the three people who actually enjoy that flavor can get it? Where's the free market and why are we as consumers finding ourselves gradually removed from the benefits of the free market while corporations take full advantage of it?
THAT is the state of pricing in cable TV and the consumer's ability to vote with their dollars has been removed. While it's all fine and well to get these niche channels as part of the deal, but at what point are there too many? The real limiting factor, a high barrier to entry in the form of cash to broadcast, has been removed so there is no real limit to the number of channels that can be added in this manner nor is there a limit to where your cable rates will go as it subsidizes these channels.
This method of pricing only reduces any incentive to produce a good product.
Ala carte pricing is, fortunately, a foregone conclusion as more and more networks will find other ways in which to distribute their product. Arguments about network neutrality are moot, if the consumer wants a network broadcasting on the internet, the consumer will find a way to watch it. |
