Re:Media monopoly time ...
on
AOL Nation
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· Score: 2
"There are literally dozens of radion stations in virtually every US market." All owned by a few large megacorporations. "There are 6 broadcast television networks" Again, owned by a small number of megacorporations. "and lots ofindependant broadcasters," I watch a lot of TV and I've never seen any independent broadcasters. A good example is back in California, channel 9 was the "local" channel. But guess what, it's owned by Disney. It might look like an independant channel but guess what, it's not. There are a few channels owned by smaller corporations, but almost all are the property of a small number of giant transnationals. " over 500 cable channels," 500 channels owned by 5 giant corporations. "only a handfull of large book publishers but hundreds of small publishers", There is a pretty good amount of smaller publishers but until books began being sold over the net, it was extremely hard to find any of their books in the giant bookstores. At least it was for me. "hundreds of independent magazines and newspapers," I can't think of any magazines or newspapers that I know of that are independent, not any "mainstream" ones anyways. "and how many websites and small ISPs?" The net is different. Thank god for that.
Re:Here goes Katz again
on
AOL Nation
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· Score: 1
and almost all of those channels are owned by 3 major corporations. you understand that there is not an independent media? or even a media operated by small corporations? almost everything you see on TV is the product of a small group of gian transnational corporations. the AOL Time Warner deal IS scary. It WAS one of the darkest days in the nets history.
That wasn't a correction, it was a tiny little dip, the system reset itself already. I agree, there is gonna be hell to pay pretty soon. Too many internet companies are trying to grow themselves to fast. They throw out common business sense in the hope that they can either grow large enough to sustain themselves or they get bought out by some bigger company. They are betting way to much on the future. YES some of them will survive, I'm not saying we'll see a total crash of the stock market. I just believe that it's very likely that the overvalued stocks are gonna reset themselves to more sane levels. The next 2 years is the most likely timeframe, probably right after xmas season of 2000. Of course the way the New Economy seems to operate I could be totally wrong. It's very possible that the rate of growth of the internet will sustain these companies growth and they will become profitable. I don't think that's very likely though.
Just wait until some of the psx2 stuff comes out. No doubt they have a version of this in store for us:) Perhaps a hub type device so you can hook up several of these to one box and share views. We live in the future, this stuff isn't that far off:)
Kinda ironic since CNNfn is owned by Time-Warner. My understanding of the deal is that it's a merger disguised as a buy-out. GE (the MegaCorp that owns Time-Warner) is basically bringing AOL under it's wing and make it the dominant factor in the new AOL Time-Warner company. The fact is though that this new company is still just a part of the GE MegaCorp.
Is that the FCC isn't acting in the interests of the people at all. In fact the only reason they are doing this is because the process is taking so long, certain cable companies are the ones who are causing the hold up. The FCC has sold out to a special interest, one of the players involved is forcing the developement of a standard, the one that they want to be adopted. The process has been circumvented in their favor. Either way though the consumers get shafted because the FCC doesn't work for us, it works for The Corporations.
It's a little different in America. DTV costs a good amount more than regular cable service. Also I'm not sure about increased image quality, I've noticed weird dithering artifacts as well as very slow response when changing channels in the higher numbers. The guide system is nice, and having such a variety of channels is good, but even with hundreds of channels it's still so hard to find something good on:( Another thing is the plans that I have seen don't allow you to pick and choose which channels you want. There are 3 tiers, the bottom cheapo tier which is basically the same as cable service without any movie channels. The mid range which is all the non-movie channels and then a half dozen of the most popular movie channels, and then the top tier which is every channel. Some places on the top tier they also give you a free pay per view movie a month.
Perhaps this could lead to the death of television. Perhaps everyone (or a significant majority) will just give up on it and move to the internet. Perhaps the switch to DTV will really be what turns the internet into the dominant form information/entertainment.
I've noticed weird dithering artifacts on the digital cable that I've seen. And changing channels goes SO SLOW once you get into the higher numbers on the box. Like changing from channel 350 to 351, at first the screen will be all black and then slowly parts of the black will drop off and the image will appear. It makes flipping through channels a real chore. I suspect this is a problem in the box, it probably doesn't have enough processing power:(
Isn't that the idea of the X-Box and the psx2. To create a box that is the central entertainment unit, bringing together gaming, dvd, TV, and the internet all to one box? Eventually I imagine there will be one data line which feeds the house. All information will be sent thru it. Instead of phone, cable, water, electricity, gas, DSL/cable it'll be dataline, water, gas, electricity. With recent deregulations so many corporations are merging, perhaps it'll ultimatly come down to one MegaCorp that you pay and they provide all services to a house, all the utilities, communications, garbage pickup, gardening services. That seems to be the direction things are heading in.
So does that mean if some attack like this game, some large scale credit card scam designed to suck a huge amount of money out of the economy and create havok in the system, that ultimatly it would be us, THE PEOPLE who get shafted and not THE CORPORATIONS who run this shitty ass unsecure system? That is what it sounds like to me and if you ask me, that doesn't seem right.
Slashdot Mirror
"There are literally dozens of radion stations in virtually every US market." All owned by a few large megacorporations. "There are 6 broadcast television networks" Again, owned by a small number of megacorporations. "and lots ofindependant broadcasters," I watch a lot of TV and I've never seen any independent broadcasters. A good example is back in California, channel 9 was the "local" channel. But guess what, it's owned by Disney. It might look like an independant channel but guess what, it's not. There are a few channels owned by smaller corporations, but almost all are the property of a small number of giant transnationals. " over 500 cable channels," 500 channels owned by 5 giant corporations. "only a handfull of large book publishers but hundreds of small publishers", There is a pretty good amount of smaller publishers but until books began being sold over the net, it was extremely hard to find any of their books in the giant bookstores. At least it was for me. "hundreds of independent magazines and newspapers," I can't think of any magazines or newspapers that I know of that are independent, not any "mainstream" ones anyways. "and how many websites and small ISPs?" The net is different. Thank god for that.
and almost all of those channels are owned by 3 major corporations. you understand that there is not an independent media? or even a media operated by small corporations? almost everything you see on TV is the product of a small group of gian transnational corporations. the AOL Time Warner deal IS scary. It WAS one of the darkest days in the nets history.
That wasn't a correction, it was a tiny little dip, the system reset itself already. I agree, there is gonna be hell to pay pretty soon. Too many internet companies are trying to grow themselves to fast. They throw out common business sense in the hope that they can either grow large enough to sustain themselves or they get bought out by some bigger company. They are betting way to much on the future. YES some of them will survive, I'm not saying we'll see a total crash of the stock market. I just believe that it's very likely that the overvalued stocks are gonna reset themselves to more sane levels. The next 2 years is the most likely timeframe, probably right after xmas season of 2000. Of course the way the New Economy seems to operate I could be totally wrong. It's very possible that the rate of growth of the internet will sustain these companies growth and they will become profitable. I don't think that's very likely though.
Just wait until some of the psx2 stuff comes out. No doubt they have a version of this in store for us :) Perhaps a hub type device so you can hook up several of these to one box and share views. We live in the future, this stuff isn't that far off :)
Kinda ironic since CNNfn is owned by Time-Warner. My understanding of the deal is that it's a merger disguised as a buy-out. GE (the MegaCorp that owns Time-Warner) is basically bringing AOL under it's wing and make it the dominant factor in the new AOL Time-Warner company. The fact is though that this new company is still just a part of the GE MegaCorp.
Is that the FCC isn't acting in the interests of the people at all. In fact the only reason they are doing this is because the process is taking so long, certain cable companies are the ones who are causing the hold up. The FCC has sold out to a special interest, one of the players involved is forcing the developement of a standard, the one that they want to be adopted. The process has been circumvented in their favor. Either way though the consumers get shafted because the FCC doesn't work for us, it works for The Corporations.
nerds like glass pitchers?
It's a little different in America. DTV costs a good amount more than regular cable service. Also I'm not sure about increased image quality, I've noticed weird dithering artifacts as well as very slow response when changing channels in the higher numbers. The guide system is nice, and having such a variety of channels is good, but even with hundreds of channels it's still so hard to find something good on :( Another thing is the plans that I have seen don't allow you to pick and choose which channels you want. There are 3 tiers, the bottom cheapo tier which is basically the same as cable service without any movie channels. The mid range which is all the non-movie channels and then a half dozen of the most popular movie channels, and then the top tier which is every channel. Some places on the top tier they also give you a free pay per view movie a month.
Perhaps this could lead to the death of television. Perhaps everyone (or a significant majority) will just give up on it and move to the internet. Perhaps the switch to DTV will really be what turns the internet into the dominant form information/entertainment.
I've noticed weird dithering artifacts on the digital cable that I've seen. And changing channels goes SO SLOW once you get into the higher numbers on the box. Like changing from channel 350 to 351, at first the screen will be all black and then slowly parts of the black will drop off and the image will appear. It makes flipping through channels a real chore. I suspect this is a problem in the box, it probably doesn't have enough processing power :(
Isn't that the idea of the X-Box and the psx2. To create a box that is the central entertainment unit, bringing together gaming, dvd, TV, and the internet all to one box? Eventually I imagine there will be one data line which feeds the house. All information will be sent thru it. Instead of phone, cable, water, electricity, gas, DSL/cable it'll be dataline, water, gas, electricity. With recent deregulations so many corporations are merging, perhaps it'll ultimatly come down to one MegaCorp that you pay and they provide all services to a house, all the utilities, communications, garbage pickup, gardening services. That seems to be the direction things are heading in.
So does that mean if some attack like this game, some large scale credit card scam designed to suck a huge amount of money out of the economy and create havok in the system, that ultimatly it would be us, THE PEOPLE who get shafted and not THE CORPORATIONS who run this shitty ass unsecure system? That is what it sounds like to me and if you ask me, that doesn't seem right.