The Comcast/TWC Merger Is About Controlling Information

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Consumerist: "Comcast and proposed merger partner Time Warner Cable claim they don't compete because their service areas don't overlap, and that a combined company would happily divest itself of a few million customers to keeps its pay-TV market share below 30%, allowing other companies that don't currently compete with Comcast to keep not competing with Comcast. This narrow, shortsighted view fails to take into account the full breadth of what's involved in this merger — broadcast TV, cable TV, network technology, in-home technology, access to the Internet, and much more. In addition to asking whether or not regulators should permit Comcast to add 10-12 million customers, there is a more important question at the core of this deal: Should Comcast be allowed to control both what content you consume and how you get to consume it?"

Comments

GIve it up

[The Cat]

Internet culture has long passed the point where it actually gives a fuck about the Internet. It only took 20 years for the people who built the web to be replaced by ten times as many headset-wearing asscracks who neither understand the Internet nor would give a shit if they did.

When some monopoly trillionaire (or just five or six large corporations) buys the fucking thing and turns it off, the best you'll get is a "meh."

You probably think I'm kidding.