I think it's not too helpful (though it certainly feels good!) to make blanket statements like Big Media is bad. How many of us enjoyed the first two installments of the LOTR films? The Star Wars films? The Matrix? None of those would have been possible without Big Media.
Yeah, it's not the same thing, and we take control of your viewing habits (forced commercials, can't record certain shows, we keep a record of the crap you're watching and sell it, etc) but come on, it's cheap and easy.
This is most of it, but I think the slant on this perspective is just slightly skewed. "Taking control of your viewer habits" isn't the end, it's a means. Despite our concerns, the cable companies (and most other business') prime motivation is pretty clear: they want to make money. We want a way around commercials, but ad revenue makes the whole game worthwhile for these guys. Without it, we won't get the same content, or we'll pay a lot more for it -- which some folks would prefer, but likely not enough to generatre a critical mass that would deliver quality shows. We'd see more Fear Factor, less Six Feet Under.
As Fritz Benwalla points out above, cable companies are bumming over PVRs because consumers prefer their ease and are leaving digital cable to buy TiVo. The cable companies would counter with simple on-demand, but the networks won't give them good shows to watch if they (the networks) believe all of us viewers are going to skip through the ads. The advertisers would find out, (darn it!) and they would pay less to run their ads. A likely compromise is a couple of commercials up front (as at the movies) -- and ads that are so compelling you don't want to miss them (see Budweiser for reference).
One more interesting thing in all this: when we first began hearing about video-on-demand 10 or 15 years ago, we thought it was going to be about movies. It turns out that TV series are looking like much better fodder, especially since the movie studios are still pretty squirrely about offering up their movies to media where the consumer has a lot of control to store (and distribute). Cable & the networks love offering shows over VOD, because they find that folks are more likely to get into a series if they can go back and pick up the episodes they may have missed.
And while there may be nothing particularly wrong with Issa going to bat for his constituent, Qualcomm, someone should care that this would further screw Iraq by making it a CDMA outpost in a GSM world (which Europe and the Middle East pretty much are). Whatever we do politically there, it will remain a cellular colony of the US's confused telco policies.
Thanks for making a key point that most of the folks posting seem to miss. in the United States, if you leave your job, you're screwed on the health insurance front, especially if you have a pre-existing condition -- which just about everyone gets at some point. I don't mind being a bit poorer, missing a mortgage payment, or having a little less financial security; but loss of health insurance could cost me my life, given my particular pre-existing condition. Talk about golden handcuffs!
I tend to agree. The thing a lot of Slashdotters probably won't understand is that there are plenty of people who will pay the extra cash for convenience. Hackers thrive on difficult tasks; most people will pay for simplicity. Why not just buy the whole CD and rip it? Who the hell has time? Just buy the tracks you want and shell out a few extra bucks.
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I think it's not too helpful (though it certainly feels good!) to make blanket statements like Big Media is bad. How many of us enjoyed the first two installments of the LOTR films? The Star Wars films? The Matrix? None of those would have been possible without Big Media.
As Fritz Benwalla points out above, cable companies are bumming over PVRs because consumers prefer their ease and are leaving digital cable to buy TiVo. The cable companies would counter with simple on-demand, but the networks won't give them good shows to watch if they (the networks) believe all of us viewers are going to skip through the ads. The advertisers would find out, (darn it!) and they would pay less to run their ads. A likely compromise is a couple of commercials up front (as at the movies) -- and ads that are so compelling you don't want to miss them (see Budweiser for reference).
One more interesting thing in all this: when we first began hearing about video-on-demand 10 or 15 years ago, we thought it was going to be about movies. It turns out that TV series are looking like much better fodder, especially since the movie studios are still pretty squirrely about offering up their movies to media where the consumer has a lot of control to store (and distribute). Cable & the networks love offering shows over VOD, because they find that folks are more likely to get into a series if they can go back and pick up the episodes they may have missed.
And while there may be nothing particularly wrong with Issa going to bat for his constituent, Qualcomm, someone should care that this would further screw Iraq by making it a CDMA outpost in a GSM world (which Europe and the Middle East pretty much are). Whatever we do politically there, it will remain a cellular colony of the US's confused telco policies.
Kickass! There is another moderate on Slashdot... 4 years of reading without posting pays off.
Thanks for making a key point that most of the folks posting seem to miss. in the United States, if you leave your job, you're screwed on the health insurance front, especially if you have a pre-existing condition -- which just about everyone gets at some point. I don't mind being a bit poorer, missing a mortgage payment, or having a little less financial security; but loss of health insurance could cost me my life, given my particular pre-existing condition. Talk about golden handcuffs!
And a BB gun won't knock out the protective glass, if they're like the traffic cameras where I live. Better upgrade to at least a .22.
I tend to agree. The thing a lot of Slashdotters probably won't understand is that there are plenty of people who will pay the extra cash for convenience. Hackers thrive on difficult tasks; most people will pay for simplicity. Why not just buy the whole CD and rip it? Who the hell has time? Just buy the tracks you want and shell out a few extra bucks.