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Cable Exec Suggests Changing Consumer Behavior, Not Business Model
Techdirt has pointed out yet another cable exec that just doesn't quite get it. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand. "'An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting.' How many consumers, in any market, are focused on 'respecting' vendors' revenue streams? How, exactly, does he propose to effect this sea change? And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
If I was making 2.2 million dollars a year salary I would probably say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear, too.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I'm sorry it is your business model that needs to change, not US.
There were many fine works when copyright didn't even exist; hell, if copyright existed, we wouldn't have had Shakespeare's.
Well, if they expect to live off the same franchises over and over in perpetuity, and not really work, I can see where their problem is.
After all, it's all men in suits who would kill themselves just for money.
On one hand, yes, media companies (and indies, etc) should develop things that people are willing to pay for, instead of putting out remakes and rehashes on a regular basis (i.e. Fark's "In yet another sign that Hollywood has truly run out of new ideas...")
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it. If you don't like the quality of the offering at the price it is offered, then don't buy it. It's quite simple.
I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
Have fun!
"get consumers to change"
Alright then, I'll change. I'll change to a different provider.
Hardy har, so funny. Or maybe instead they could make their money the way broadcast television has successfully done so for longer than most of us have been alive? Hint: advertising does actually work. Then just offer a subscription service to folks who don't want to see ads. Easy as pie. Shame the cable companies are too busy double dipping (subscription AND ads) to realize consumers hate it.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
The sense of entitlement is sickening. No business has a right to make profit, and I certainly don't have to "recpect" their revenue stream. This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free. There are now millions of people who will go their entire lives without purchasing much content, and they were created by the greed and incompetence of the RIAA/MPAA and friends.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Microsoft proves it can be done with every release of Windows.
Advertising yes, marketing no. Good marketing (including market research) allows a company to realize that the customer doesn't care about the specific product they sell, but rather about the benefit that it provides. Cable companies provide entertainment. Customers don't care how they get that entertainment. The cable exec from the article doesn't understand this. Classic example is Xerox shifting from photocopy machines to 'Document Management.'
... I say maybe I'll start to worry about what is fair to you a little bit when you start to worry about the level of service given to ME.
The corporations of the U.S. are not monarchy (yet) so it's not our job to make sure you live high on the hog. Maybe if you treated me like a customer I would feel some loyalty.
Absolutely. They missed the boat by 5-10 years. Had they started offering convenient digital services instead of stubbornly trying to protect their existing, entrenched businesses, they probably could have transitioned people into a new business model back when everybody was still used to paying through the nose for content. But no, that would require work, and vision, and why would you do that when you're making money hand over fist and the good times will never end?
So yeah, just another industry that failed to adapt to change when they had the opportunity. Well, you missed it buddy.
And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
Because he feels the same way you do. You don't seem at all eager to adapt your behavior to the terms on which products are being marketed. You instead want to force the providers to change.
So, you don't want to change, you just want to do things your way and force others to change. The provider also doesn't want to change. They want to do things their way and force you to change.
Both parties want to give little and receive much. Consumers want to pay little and get lots of high quality content. Providers want to expend few resources in content provision and receive lots of money.
I'd say the two groups are more alike than different. One just has more members than the other.
Sure advertising works, nobody would ever install Add-Block or use the pop-up blockers that are popular in many web browsers.
will render you extinct.
So you are still beholden to a big corp; just a different big corp. I don't see one would boast about this.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
Cable TV free and proud, two years running.
Improve your life. Cancel your subscription.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
... if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors ...
"Respecting copyright" is not really the same thing as "respecting subscription revenue". There are a significant number of people that do respect copyright, even if the typical Slashdot discussion doesn't seem to support that statement. But even if every music and movie "pirate" stopped downloading illegal copies as of today, it wouldn't fix the broken revenue model the music and movie industries still want to cling to - the technology available today has irreparably destroyed their old-school business plan.
#DeleteChrome
Comcast's COO should be focused on giving people what they want at a price that will make money for Comcast.
And for all we know, this is exactly how he intends to go about getting those behavioral changes he is advocating. Though, I suspect he'd advocate instilling some sense of value in these customers first.
If people want downloadable media and the existing corporations refuse to provide it legitimately, it is clear that people will simply take it illegitimately.
That is clear, you're correct. What is unclear is whether there is a middle ground. It is entirely possible that even with penny DVD's people will still take it illegitimately. It doesn't take a huge imagination to see where that would wind up leading.
If instead the large content providers had simply created distribution mechanisms where digital media could be obtained easily at a reasonable price with reasonable usage terms then people would have had much less incentive to search out pirated media.
Again, absolutely true. There would be less incentive. Whether 1% or 100% less, is unclear.
I for one don't find fault in the content providers for having their own point of view, even when it doesn't match my own.
You're ignoring the part of my post where I mentioned that they should also offer the product in a free, ad supported way as well. Why pirate The Simpsons when I can watch it on Hulu for free? Both Hulu and Pirate Bay show ads, so there's little difference except the fact that Hulu is the legal option.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I am familiar with the subtleties of the business relationships, but that's not what's relevant here. What's relevant is how the consumer perceives it. The consumer either wants to pay nothing and see ads or pay a subscription service and see no ads. When consumers are forced to both see ads and pay a subscription fee, they're going to consider it double dipping on the part of the provider, regardless of who is seeing what revenues. As such, this (perceived) double dipping will ruin the cable business sooner or later as more and more consumers turn toward services which don't do it.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
"I fail to see how the cable companies are double dipping but this seems to be a very common misconception around here."
Sigh. I'm old enough to remember when cable TV was first rolled out. There were NO commercials. It was touted as a subscription-based alternative to over-the-air, advertising-supported programming.
Didn't take too long for greed to take over. Now, the only non-commercial channels are the premium ones, like HBO, Showtime, etc. - and they're all busy advertising themselves between shows.
I see the same thing eventually happening to satellite radio. The siren-song of advertising dollars is just too strong to resist.
My favorite button on the remote control is 'mute'.
"A revolution without dancing is... a revolution not worth having"
Err locked in phones are consumer driven. We want cheap ass mobiles and we are more than willing to sign over our souls for them, business will provide this.
for the most part, to pay far less than it's worth
They paid what they thought it was worth. That is basic econ 101 stuff there.
Now the producer *thought* it was worth more. Hell he probably couldn't cover his costs at what people really thought it was worth.
Say you make something cool. I know it is hard to believe but there are people out there who do not care about it. You have put tons of energy into it why wouldn't they like it? They will not even download it for free.
Me I didn't even download the game. That is what I thought about it... Not even worth my time to mess with. I'm sure it is an awesome game and all. But *my* time is more valuable on other things these days...
Someone else put it best here the other day '1 greedy person can not compete with thousands of greedy people'. It is greed but there is more to it than just that...
As the father of 3 boys and the pet of 1 cat, I realize that any solution to a problem that starts with or includes the words "make them do" or some variant thereof, is inherently flawed. These people have a wrong worldview. Why doesn't this surprise me?
How about, instead, the wording "they have a need/want; how do we meet it and still get what we need/want?" should figure heavily in the solution.
for legitimate copies of the content they're interested in just because it's less of a hassle to do so.
Unfortunately, this is where you are wrong. Things have gotten so out of sorts that it is often less of a hassle to use the non-legitimate version. The problem with these companies is that the legitimate version costs more, can be less reliable, and comes with burdens and accusations. I am left wondering why I would bother to pay them when they add zero value to the transaction.
before the internet, you were a necessary evil. someone had to distribute the media, and you needed to be respected in order to provide that service. that portion of copyright law that provided for your protections was valid... then
you have been replace, by the internet
authors, musicians, directors: they distribute their media for free. it serves only as advertising for their real source of revenue: ancillary streams like advertising, promotion, concerts, the cinema house, pulp copies, specialized content, speaking engagements, movie adaptation deals, etc.
you are no longer necessary, and the laws that protect you are defunct. the laws that protect you are not pronouncements from god that say the economic model that allowed for your existence is a permanent state of being
direct artist-consumer links, that is the internet. books, video, music, anything of value that is consumed digitally: its all free. revenue sources are all ancillary streams. ONLY FOR THE ARTIST. NO DISTRIBUTOR NEEDED, SO NO REVENUE FOR YOU
YOU ARE EXTINCT AND YOUR LAWS ARE DEFUNCT. DEAL WITH IT. FUCK OFF AND DIE ALREADY
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What people really want it on-demand television. No more channels, just menus of shows to pick from. Haven't DVRs proven that. The only people that seem to get that are the fine folks at Apple, that are working on a subscription service for the TV portion of the iTunes Music Store.
Heck, Hulu was awesome for that. And it took off. Now they want to charge for it. Entertainment execs still don't get it.
As you raise prices and gouge consumers, people starting downloading illegally. When you make things more reasonable, like Amazon and Apple did with music, then people come flocking and making money.
Any belief that people are ignoring copyright now, when they didn't before is folly. If people could have copied LPs back in the 50s, they would have done so. Technology has finally caught up with desire. That's all.
The arrogance of the business community is far worse. How can anyone honestly believe someones skills could be worth 2.2 million per year? Are his skills really that rare? Or maybe it's because big business leadership is an exclusive club where friends reward friends with huge sums of money?
...but it is time that slashdotters understand that running a business into the ground by failing to adapt is tough.
FTFY
It's modded funny because there is no "Blindly Ignorant" option.
The consumer will start caring about the corporation when the corporation starts respecting the consumer. Right now the corporation will screw the consumer over to get every last dollar out of them and the consumer will try to get everything possible for free. There will never be respect unless the war is ended.
I am sure that the horse buggy whip manufacturers, ice block distribution kings, and whale oil lamp cartel had similar plans to change consumer behavior as well. Problem is that the copyright cartel has done little or nothing to change with the times. They have brought this on themselves. It is humorous (annoying?) to see them operate as if they should be allowed to not change simply because they don't want to. Why do they think they are different than every other corporation on the planet? Times change. Technology changes. Adapt or die. It is a fundamental pillar of capitalism (and biology as well, but that is different slashdot thread). You have love their arrogance though.
I'm going to assume that you're trying to play the clown in the dunk tank.
Suits are all Dog Pack mentality. Whether they come up the ranks as salesmen on a commission or as the boss's son or as a ringer, golf partner, they typically are glorified accountants who maintain the status quo. The average slashdotter probably isn't too good at risk assessment but with the current state of the economy, I'm willing to give them a crack at it and sack the entire lot of ex-jock good-ol-boys.
That's why you go to Harvard or Princeton or Yale. It's not for the education. It's for the contacts.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Slashdot thinks in terms of right or wrong. Businesses thinks in terms of priorities.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga