otis_sh
join:2007-05-04
Ann Arbor, MI | idea I'm skeptical.
Here's what I'd like to see -- for instance...
A "Netflix" box. Or a "Blockbuster" box. Place it on top of your Comcast box, or your DirecTV box, or whatever.
This box connects to the internet. It's an "on demand" device. Just like 3rd-party VOIP or whatever.
If Mr. Valenti (God rest his soul) had had his way, there wouldn't be any Blockbuster or Netflix or anything else in the first place.
The big corps are speculating, the big corps want a cut of the action. The big corps WANT monopoly power. Didn't they learn anything in economics class? Perhaps they don't care.
The internet is a perfect opportunity to create competition for multimedia services. If movie download companies had their own hardware you could connect to your TV set, with perhaps an optional wireless component that plugs into your router, how many people would choose p2p? Not very many. Today, we have technology available that could out-compete p2p and practically eliminate it as a desirable option. But it's not happening. We have the technology to enable LEGAL internet-based, unlimited on-demand for a nominal monthly fee right underneath our noses. But it's not happening.
Usenet, for instance, is up to something like 4+ terabytes a day (upload). Retentions for some ISPs go up to 120 days. That means some of these companies have storage capacity of 480 terabytes (or more). That's enough storage to rip 48,000+ DVD9's to a redundant hard drive farm of some sort (according to my calculations). So the storage capacity is there - it can be done - a LEGAL internet-based on-demand movie download service is perfectly doable (so long as the customer has a decent, uninhibited, non-oversold broadband connection).
Could you imagine having even 30,000 movies "on demand" through a set-top Blockbuster or whatever box that's connected wirelessly to your home router? Pretty cool, if you asked me. But oh, yeah... download limits -- you'll get cut off. That's "abuse" - you're a "hog". Suuuure... I get it.
Make it easy for the customer, make it affordable for the customer. The technology is there to make internet-based, LEGAL, legitimate "on demand" services available. Why download and burn in an unauthorized way when you can, with a click of a remote, legally and legitimately select from tens of thousands of titles? The on-demand service wins hands-down for ease of use and selection. For instance - Netflix has over 75,000 titles. Why bother with p2p? Waste of time, waste of money - seriously. p2p Is MORE expensive. Where you gonna put 75,000 DVDs? How long is it going to take you to download them? At $2 a piece, that 150K for the blanks alone! It's just so obvious what's going on.
Bandwidth hogs is the wrong way to look at it. The internet can provide some real competition in this area. We have the technology now to create an on-demand service for movies and TV shows that have been released on DVD that can turn the status quo upside down... LEGALLY. But doing that would turn people into bandwidth hogs, so, of course, it won't happen.
I'm totally skeptical about this stuff these monopoly fan-boys are spewing. This is one area of life on earth that just doesn't work.
Besides, with an on-demand service like that, every time someone selects the movie, a royalty goes to that title.
With this kind of talk about bandwidth hogs and this type of characterization of bandwidth as being so precious, the only way an on-demand service will ever happen is through the TV folks. That's probably exactly the way they want it.
Who ever says things like this, although perhaps meaning well, is unknowingly working against the very industry they are trying to help out. Strange how that works. VHS and DVD rental have worked out extremely well, and they are 100% legal. Now that the hard drive capacities have gone up, and as broadband becomes increasingly prevalent, creating a free market for internet-based on-demand services is simply a logical next step.
Internet-based set-top on-demand boxes could be an extremely significant source of revenue for the movie industry. Royalties would be generated from the download alone - no DVD would need to be printed. It would be basically like royalties from nothing (more or less). A single DVD ripped to the rental company's hard drive farm could be downloaded tens of thousands of times, generating a royalty each time. The service would be more user-friendly, and have a vastly greater selection than anything p2p can offer. Perhaps even the hardware could be locked down with DRM, but even so - why would you want to try to extract the data from the hard drive of the set-top box when all you have to do to watch the movie again is just press a button on your remote?
So what the ISP should do is up the capacity so that it's impossible to hog the bandwidth, and get broadband to everyone, and then the movie studios should cut deals with Netflix and the like to enable them to legally offer internet-based on-demand services.
But instead, we have this. Who's fault is it really?
What these executives need to realize is that even though THEY may look good with their nice bottom line when they reap their rewards from the acquisition and exercise of monopoly power, in the long run, they're not doing anyone any good (including themselves). Didn't they learn anything in economics class, or did they forget, or do they just not care?
There is a better way. There's always a better way. But unfortunately, it seems like more often than not, those who are in a position to do something about it don't see things that way.
Oh well. |
