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from the why-the-merger-should-be-stopped dept.
The first media call came in at 7 a.m., a producer at ABC Radio News waking me up to ask if I had any thoughts about the announcement that Time Warner and America Online had just decided to merge into a $350 billion company. The second call came from the BBC, then the Associated Press.
The fourth was from a Boston Globe reporter asking if I could comment on IBM's announcement that it was taking major steps to make Linux a centerpiece of its computer hardware strategy, the biggest embrace yet of Open Source by a major computer maker.
The juxtaposition of the two announcements was almost Biblical in its symbolism and significance:
If Microsoft turns out to be guilty of anti-trust violations for seeking to dominate the Web browser market and discouraging innovation and competition, then the Time-Warner-AOL merger seems dramatically more serious in its potential consequences, not only for consumers but for a competitive new media environment. In fact, the accusations against Microsoft seem trivial when weighed against the impact of the mega-merger announced yesterday.
The cornerstone of anti-trust law -- and the idea behind a free press -- is that the individual citizen/consumer benefits from openness, choice and diversity of expression and opinion. The impact of mergers like this is to deny choice, concentrate power and homogenize creativity and expression. Many of us are free marketers here, and we like the booming global economy. But there are limits. Steve Case and Gerald Levin have broached them. At some point, Americans have to decide if they still want a free information culture, along with a functioning government. Or not.
AOL and Time-Warner wouldn't just be creating another media company, but an information nation. This company would be much larger in cultural influence and economic power than most countries on the earth. Time-Warner/AOL would become the largest media "content provider" on the planet, a hybrid conglomerate ranging from movies to magazines to messaging and conferencing systems to online services to cable systems linking AOL's (and Compuserve's) 20 million subscribers. This would create the world's largest media platform for the purpose of what drooling Wall Street analysts like to describe as "cross-fertilization with content." For anyone who doesn't know what that means, the translation is simple: monopolize both content and the means to transmit it.
The move represents the most sweeping move yet by corporate conglomerates to control high-speed access to the Internet and to dominate its content. Ironically, it threatens to further pressure Microsoft, whose bumbling efforts to expand into new media now appear even more short-sighted and poorly-timed.
If the AOL/Time-Warner merger is permitted, according to Scott Ehrens, one of Wall Street's most respected media analysts, it will represent "an unprecedented powerhouse. If their mantra is content, this alliance is unbeatable."
The AOL/Time-Warner mantra is, in fact, content, along with delivery. But it isn't as clear whether it's unbeatable. If the IBM/Linux move hadn't been announced on the same day, yesterday would have gone down in history as one of the Net's darkest.
But IBM's decision to Linux-enable its computers might mark an even more significant shift in the technology world. IBM's embrace of open source underscores the fact that Linux is no longer a fringe technology. The age of proprietorship may have ended yesterday, as a hoary corporation appeared to emerge Godzilla-style from the muck.
The significance of IBM's move was that the next generation of e-business will expect increasingly open standards for inter-operability across a wide variety of computer platforms. A movement that began as a counter-cultural, individualistic effort to keep the Net free from the very kind of corporatist control the AOL/Time-Warner merger typifies has broadened into a growing standard for commercial as well as individual computer use.
Linux has, in effect, ensured that at least a significant portion of the Net will have an option to remain free of the kind of corporate control AOL and Time Warner each embodied separately, let along together. (If there were ever two companies that deserved to eat one another alive, it's these two. It's hard to say which is greedier, blander, or less committed to any ethos beyond information as a cash commodity.)
The AOL/Time-Warner merger is chilling. This is a new kind of nation the world doesn't need. The merger needs to be carefully scrutinized, and hopefully stopped. The company would be far too big and powerful to exert a healthy influence on media, entertainment, or on the Internet. If corporations and their lobbyists weren't the largest contributors to the American political process, members of Congress would be clamoring for hearings on the acquisition of the American media, new and old, by a handful of obscenely large and powerful businesses.
The libertarian ethos of the Net resists government control or oversight, but that philosophy will be sorely tested by mergers like this one, which could make many nostalgic for the old Microsoft. The corporate move to acquire information, online and off, is a civic and an Internet menace. There hardly exists a free and independent journalistic culture off-line anymore. Time-Warner, Disney, GE, News America, Microsoft and Westinghouse have devoured too many of the country's most powerful media organizations.
The United States may have been the birthplace of a free and independent press, but its contemporary mass media are, increasingly, disgraceful testaments to mega-marketing: sensationalized promoters of controversy and fragmentation, producers of tepid, homogenized information-peddling.
By comparison, the Net, increasingly the subject of commercial and corporate interest and speculation, has remained strikingly free, diverse and outspoken. One of the most substantial threats online, the growing dominance of Microsoft, was blunted by the open source movement, government intervention, and the company's own uncertainty and lack of real creativity.
As of this week, individuals, people who believe in free and diverse speech, those who believe in the free distribution of information and unrestricted navigation of the Net, have a new and potentially much more menacing opponent than Microsoft ever was. To a chorus of breathless business reporters and joyous Wall Street analysts, Steve Case declared he was launching "an Internet Revolution." That's a pretty fancy term for unprecedented greed and power.
Case managed to make Bill Gates appear humble.For all that Gates is routinely portrayed as a Millenial genius, neither he nor his company was ever that grasping, or particularly creative when it came to creating content or expanding into new forms of media. Ultimately, despite much-publicized ventures from the online magazine Slate to MSNBC, Microsoft has not been able to successfully move beyond software and services.
Companies like AOL-Time/Warner will seek to dominate the Net just as other companies increasingly bulldoze over other parts of American business and cultural life, from music and filmaking to retailing and even coffee shops. Wal-Mart, Blockbuster Video, Staples, Toys R Us, Starbucks, Disney and now, AOL/Time-Warner, rule our world.
Re:Here goes Katz again (Score:3)
And then people like you would give up and shut the fsck up? Fair trade, I say!
;)
Content control (Score:3)
AOL has control of the access to one medium for a huge number of people. Time/Warner will be providing the content for AOL, and it opens up the possiblility of manipulating people via that content. Compuserve useed to make it difficult to access the web, in the hope of restricting their subscribers to their own 'value added' sites. With such a huge media organisation this becomes must more easily accomplished.
Chris Wareham
God Dammit!!! (Score:3)
That now makes me a lousy AOLuser. Guess I have to start using all the smileys and faux leet speak.
Or I could go investigate DSL... hmmm...
That's just too much to wake up to.
Katz is onto something... (Score:3)
I see it as just a huge ISP company joining a huge media company... no big deal there, but is it ME who still gets to decide how do I view their content, or whether to view it or not... after all, there's still a lot of other media companies, in the US and around the world. Remember, the net is, again, that which makes this possible.
It's totally different from Microsoft's bloated ambition... to control every electronic device you have or interact with... now that's scary.
Re:This merger is good... how? (Score:3)
As for consumers. It makes me kind of nervous with one huge company owning that much of our news outlets. But then, the theory would go that the beauty of the internet is in the fact that anyone (witness Rob and Jeff) can start a website, and if they have actual content, succeed. Yeah, there'll be one huge giant supplying news for the lazy people that don't bother to look elsewhere. That won't change what news is like today. And there will forever be the hundreds and thousands of niche sites that supply news to readers with specific interests.
What i can't figure out is why everyone hates AOL so much? Because they're the onyl company that actually made the internet easy enough for non-techies to use? What have they done wrong (not counting yesterday, if that was bad) to merit any hatred? I'm genuinely curious.
The sky is falling again! (Score:3)
What does this mean for the consumer? I reckon it's a case of plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Ten years ago we had media corporations that told us what the news was. The internet changed that -- temporarily. Now we're back into the same position, with the exception that it's easier to get alternative viewpoints. If I hear Dan Rather tell me about something that's happening in China, I can check out the South China Morning Post for an alternate view. However big the corporation get, I can't see that changing any time soon.
Re:Libertarian ideas (Score:3)
Because corporations won't have the priviledges that they now possess. In today's world, governments grant charters to corporations, declaring them to be "legal entities". Because of this, the shareholders (owners) have no liability for the actions of their company.
In a proprietorship (non-corporate business), the owners are fully liable for their company. When the company get's sued, the owners are named in the suit. There are things a proprietorship may not legally do, that a corporation, even a two-man outfit, can.
A libertarian society is about liberty, not license. People are individually responsible for their own actions. But a corporation shields individuals from the consequences of their actions. And they can only do this through the help of the government.
But libertarians do not want "zero government control/regulation". The government has among its proper purposes the defense of the individual against theft and fraud. In a world with "minimal" regulation, they playing field is level. Individuals cannot hide behind their corporate shield. Shareholders are not forced to sell to the competitor just because the SEC says so. There is no eminent domain forcing the mom-and-pop coffeeshop to sell out to Donald Trump so he can build a new casino.
In a libertarian world, the only way a business can become a monopoly is to provide a service that everyone wants. If they start jacking their prices up because they have a natural monopoly, they will quickly lose it as competitors enter the market. And in a libertarian world, monopolies have no power to stop competition, so they have to behave themselves.
But that doesn't mean it's not dangerous (Score:3)
Here's why: Microsoft's monopoly gives it an incredible amount of control over the IT industry that enables it to squeeze out competitive products, keeping prices up and lowering the quality of software available to John Q. Public. This is pretty bad, but realize it's pretty much limited to software.
Time Warner / AOL merger is about control of information. At the same time that the means of information distribution are becoming more global, bashing through cultural barriers (exporting American "culture" everywhere), the number of entities in control of the production of this information and content is shrinking rapidly to a small, oligopolistic group. So we've got an increasingly smaller number of entities controlling the information consumed by an increasingly large amount of the world. This scares me a lot more than OS choice.
The stakes here are much higher. It's easy to have a healthy, democratic society without cheap, effective computer software. It's much harder to have one without free communication and public awareness of critical issues. As the number of truly independent media outlets shrinks, the more sanitized, corporately correct and sensational our primary sources of information become.
So while AOL / TW doesn't have the absolute control over a single product that Microsoft does, it (along with Disney, GE, etc...) has a lot more control over a fundamental part of our society's basic infrastructure (the media) than any one entity should. Which we should all be very concerned about.
Re:Katz is onto something... (Score:3)
Power corrupts, any company in monopoly position gets corrupted (if it isn't already). Monopoly doesn't work with capitalism because...
I don't see TW/AOL imposing restrictions where possible, or imposing hinderances or annoying little things.
Speaking of annoying little things..have you used the download manager with Netscape? That useful little utitily that showed up after AOL chowed Netscape, you know, the one that pops up four ads, requires three clicks to get through and gives you the added benefit of, hold on, downloading files!
In doing so, they'd lose a lot of their market simply because the market wouldn't like it...
That's the joy of controlling the market, the consumer CAN'T go someplace else. Don't like CNN, try Headline News, oops same company, how about MSNBC, doh!, how about FoxNews, hmmm, new bikinis. Choice for media, esp. news has all but disappeared from old media. This merger, if allowed, would make sure for it never to reappear, and could possible make it impossible to ever get that critical mass you need to sustain yourself on the 'Net. If you thought mass media was bland now, wait'll the next century.
And this is all before even beginning to approach the cencorship issues (AOL has a grand record with that), when you control 30% of what people hear or see it's not that hard to lead them wherever you want them to go.
Re:But that doesn't mean it's not dangerous (Score:3)
or maybe a review in Time of national ISP's, or CNN ignores a story about AOL's security woes, or a story on AOLNews about how RoadRunner is the *best* way access the 'Net, or major motion pictures about AOL soundbytes (wait a second...). Thats one side.
The only really savvy thing AOL has done right so far, is to spam the general public with their installation diskettes. They are not a threat.
I'd rather not have every new Net user for the next 3 years signs up with AOL. So easy to use no wonder it's number 1, so many disks no wonder it's number 1, so many commercials no wonder it's number 1, and finally, no competitors no wonder it's number 1.
I don't miss "Mom and Pop" culture in the US (Score:3)
This is true offline. Why should it not be true online? I used to be with a small, local ISP and I must tell you that it was the most miserable ISP I have ever had to deal with. My chances of getting a connection were 1 in 2. Three hour connection limit. Lousy tech support. Busy signals all the time. I switched to one of the major ISP's (not AOL) and I am so much happier. I get 24/7 tech support, almost no busy signals, can stay connected as long as I want. Basically it offered everything that the tiny little company didn't. What is there not to like about that?
AOL and Time Warner, like Wal-Mart before it, will bring bigger, faster, more convienent internet to the masses! I'm not going to use their service because I don't like what AOL offers, but I really don't see anything wrong with making life easier for people, even if it does mean eliminating crappy competition.
Libertarian ideas (Score:3)
I have to agree with Katz here. What do Libertarians think about this? The typical argument I see is that oligopolies and monopolies can't exist with government control (or making them legal, etc), and competition should increase without market controls, but I don't think that is true. If we really did have zero government control/regulation, what would stop a giant slug fest with the result being a few corporations basically owning and/or running the world?
I don't like a lot of what our government does but I think we need one to prevent exactly this type of scenario far before it reaches that point (think of sci-fi movies that look 25-50 to years into the future like Freejack).
I think our government has been moving twords the Libetarian ideal for a number of years now anyway, with deregulation. But look at the telecom industry, competition is decreasing, not increasing, and the industry is consolidating. Even in markets that have been opened up to competitors (such as mine) for the baby bells, not much has changed, DSL access is still spotty, etc. How do Libertarians respond to this?
Jon Katz Nation (Score:4)
Sorry, but I don't consider Jon Katz "libertarian". To be interested in liberty is to be interested in freedom. There is no freedom when there is Only One "right" opinion. This ain't Highlander, and There Can't Be Only One around here. Anyone with a -real- claim to libertarianism knows that.
Why, then, do I leave Jon Katz' checkbox checked? Because I believe that it's worth hearing other people's opinions. Sometimes, in all the dross, there are some real gems. (In general, though, IMHO Slashdot is mostly gems. The dross, though, goes past being real and through the other side.)
Besides, sometimes he says some really meaningful stuff. Just from a mindspace I'd hate to be in.
Media monopoly time ... (Score:4)
Given the partisan nature of newspapers like The Sun (backed up by a slightly more erudite Times that sings the same tune), it's got to the point where media moguls can swing the outcome of elections
Chris Wareham
Don't you think this is a bit melodramatic? (Score:4)
One of the darkest days for the net? I think that is a bit ridiculous, quite frankly. I don't have any problem with these companies merging. It may well make for a better bottom line, which is a major objective of corporations. I think they have a perfect right to merge as they see fit. If the government would get out of a lot of this stuff (that includes using its monopoly on force in enforcing bogus intellectual property laws for 95 years or more), things would be a lot better.
On what principle do you operate to say that the government should prevent this? Government creates more problems than it solves here. Now, I disagree fundamentally with libertarians on some issues, but regarding goverment jumping into this sort of thing, I am more or less in agreement with them. I think a reasonable argument can be made to sanction or even break up a company after wrongdoing is discovered, but I am very uncomfortable with disallowing voluntary mergers before the fact.
Not as bad as you might think (Score:4)
There are plenty of competitors in the internet/media arena that provide both service and content.
One potentially interesting outcome is that AOL has been fighting to access to other companies cable modem networks. Will they now have to open up the cable networks that Time/Warner owns, or end up looking like hipocrites?
A Correction: Not the Largest! (Score:4)
AOL/Time-Warner plans to be the world's largest corporation
They have quite a ways to go in order to be the World's largest corporation (though this is definitely the largest merger ever).
Microsoft $576.6 billion
General Electric 496.5
Cisco Systems 362.2
Wal-Mart 305.1
Exxon-Mobil 293.3
NTT 287.3
Intel 274.0
AOL-Time Warner 261.0
Vodafone-Mannesmann 261.0
MCI Worldcomm-Sprint 223.7
Royal Dutch-Shell 218.7
Pfizer-Warner Lambert 207.8
Actually, I think this is a "good thing" (tm). (Score:4)
Ummm. nevermind, last time [slashdot.org] I did that I was marked down as a troll...
Let's face it. One of the great debates over the internet ever since AOL hooked up it's bulliten board is "How do we get away from these idiots?"
Thanks to the merger, we may soon be free.
AOL will be able to offer a lot of content and special deals. They will be able to let you buy your new GM car and check out the TV guide listings. In short, you'll be able to do all the mundane things that the internet is so good at without ever having to go to the actual internet!
And this my friends solves our problem. It's already easy enough to identify people using AOL. This can be done by checking the IP address using Perl or Java and then redirecting people to a "404 page". This has been done by a number of webmasters already due to the actions of numerous AOL users. (Links will not be provided in order to protect identities.)
Soon we can envision two internets. AOL and the old Internet. As usual, AOL will not share the majority of it's content with us, and some of us will not share out content with them (see above). However the tourists will start to fade away as we cease to offer them the lowbrow contents they so greatly desire.
P.S. No, my site is still available to Aol users as it's the only way my parents (both AOL users)can see their grandson [home.net].
AOL is already censoring discussion of the merger (Score:4)
Re:Just say no to anti-trust (Score:5)
In the case you're talking about above, Time-Warner most certainly has a monopoly on providing cable services to homes in a large number of areas in the country. The concern is, particularly with this deal with AOL, that they will erect barriers preventing others from providing Internet access over those cable lines.
Now, if you don't see the kind of problems this could cause, I suggest you call up Time-Warner and ask them for cable-modem access to the Internet. If you are lucky enough to be one of their customers who actually even has access to the service, now tell them that you want to hook up a Linux box to that service, now tell them at you want a static IP, now tell them that you want to run a little web server, now tell them that you want encrypted access to control to your e-mail... etc.
Guess what? Somewhere in that conversation you are going to hear "NO!", and then you're going to realize that not only did you get a "NO!", but that you have nowhere else to turn to to get such services. Then you're going to realize that for someone to offer a competitive service they'd have to overcome rediculous barriers to entry (in terms of initial capital and time), and at any time Time-Warner/AOL could put them out of business before they even got off the ground by suddenly offering some of these services. Then you'll realize that as a consequence nobody will try to get in to that business. Then you're going to realize that because you have noone else to turn to, they have no reason to rush to provide all these other services. Then you'll realize that you'll be lucky if your grandkids get to see those services, and if they do, that Time-Warner/AOL will be under no competitive pressure to keep the price low...
...and then you'll understand what anti-trust law is there for, and why we need it.
AOL Time Warner is about cable internet (Score:5)
This isn't very good for AOL financially in the short term. They are being widely downgraded, because the new AOL TIme Warner will almost certainly have a lower growth rate than AOL by itself. Only fear could have motivated a stunt like this.
AOL has no interest in running a TV/movie studio/network. There isn't much added value in owning both TV/film and Internet properties. This isn't about TV/Internet convergence.
AOL Time Warner is not a vertical monopoly any more than Time Warner or AOL were by themselves. AOL is one of the few internet companies with a steady, regular income, and this is because they are not especially involved in the content industry. They are an ISP - a very successful one. Time Warner is completely hamstrung by FCC regulations - they can't stop showing TV shows from competing studios on their networks, nor will they stop selling WB programmes to competing networks. CNN will still be seen on AT&T cable systems, and AOL doesn't open Time Warner up to new sources of TV or film content. AOL will continue to host websites and marketing for competing studios and TV networks. They recently signed a deal with PBS to carry some of their web content.
AOL and Time Warner will still have completely separate management structures. AOL has no background in mass media, and has no great reason to try to acquire some.
I will bet that a few years down the line, AOL will spin off the TV and film studios and the TV networks and just keep the cable infrastructure. That's the only part of Time Warner that makes any sense as a part of AOL.
Re:Here's a question I have (Score:5)
Tim Beherendsen dun said:
Liberal? United States media in general? Liberal?
*sound of yours truly ROTFLMAO*
Just in case you didn't know:
The media in the US may best be described as right-wing moderate. The US (both in government and in media) is, by far, the most conservative (in the "right-wing" sense) in the Western world; even Canadian and British media are more liberal (and the Brits seem to whinge on how things have gone more conservative--listen, please don't whinge to ME on it unless they take off the watershed hour, stop allowing shows taking the piss of the priesthood, stop allowing barenekked women, and stop allowing you to say "fuck" and "shit" on British TV--NONE of which we in the States would EVER be able to get away with--a friend from Belfast was actually SHOCKED at how conservative American media is, and he's from a part of the world where people are trying very hard to kill each other over which flavour of Christianity is best :P).
America has swung so far to the right over a period of 25 years that, if Richard Nixon were alive today and running on the platform he ran on in his last election, he would be considered a liberal in America's present political climate. (No, I am not making this up. The scary thing is, Richard Nixon was considered an arch-conservative in his time.)
The United States is (and yes, I know some of you will accuse me of fearmongering and all, but I think I have grounds to say this--considering I grew up around psychofundies for 25 years of my life) precariously close to joining the rest of the countries that are more conservative than the US--that is, becoming a theocracy (just in this case a "Christian" one rather than an "Islamic" or "Jewish" one). The UnChristian Coalition has effectively taken over the political apparatus of the Republican party in over thirty states; even more frighteningly, other Religious Reich groups are also involved (most notably branch groups of the American Family Association--the selfsame group trying to censor public library feeds under its branch group "Family Friendly Libraries"), they are now trying to go for the Reform Party as well, and the US Taxpayers Party (which is, for all intents and purposes, a fundy-"Christian" political party that also has links to nastier groups yet like "Christian Identity" [who spout the canard that the US is the real "Chosen Nation", that the Jews are just faking at being Jews, and who think all non-white people should be "ethnically cleansed"], and has as part of its platform the establishment of a fundy theocracy in the US [many of the party leaders are "Christian Reconstructionists", who preach the canard that the Founding Fathers really meant the US to be a fundamentalist theocracy and who even want to restore Leviticus-style punishments such as mandatory stoning for being gay or sassing your parents]) has gotten on the ballots in a frightening number of states.
The swing to the right has been both among Republicans and Democrats, and can be attributed largely to fundy groups pressuring both parties (the Religious Reich is really one of the best-funded groups in the US; several Fortune 500 CEOs, such as the head of Coors, the head of Wal-Mart/Sam's Club, and the head of Amway have sat or do sit on the board of the Coalition for National Policy, a secretive "think tank"/planning committee of the Religious Reich), as well as pushing for cuts in taxes and calls to "protect the children" which the fundies are all too welcome to take advantage of. (Here's something I bet you didn't know: You know why fundies push so much for vouchers and school funding to be cut? Part of the actual "party line" for the Religious Reich is to eventually get rid of public schools altogether and FORCE people to go to religious schools--because they know damn well that if they can get the kids young it is unlikely they will walk away [especially from the groups that use coercive tactics, and "Bible-based cults" are the single largest group in the US using coercive tactics aside from the Scientologists].)
Just about the only time media DOES show any sort of liberal bias or even moderate bias is if the owner has some sort of pet project (Turner, for instance, has environmental issues as a "pet project"). Otherwise, things are geared towards big business, the conservative leaders, and calls to "protect the children". (I, for one, worry about the news swinging even FARTHER to the right; AOL has been known to censor the word "breast" even in discussions of breast cancer, as well as have other objectionable practices in censoring chat-rooms and the like [and it doesn't bloody well stop the people trading porn on AOL, trust me].)
The other thing that worries me is this--Most media is owned by three or four large corporations nowadays. As someone noted, they can literally make or break elections (I strongly suspect this is why third parties have such a hard time in the US; they never even get the airtime to discuss platforms and thus never get to be in debates, etc...you'd honestly think the Green Party would get press, seeing as Ralph Nader is head, but most folks don't even know the US HAS political parties besides Republican, Democrat, Reform, and maybe Libertarian). Combine that with the fact that on average, only 25-50% of registered voters vote in elections.
I keep thinking the last time things were set up like that and the last times a nation had such a massive rush to the right...were Afghanistan, Iran, and Germany in the early 30's...one group having so much control over anything is a Bad Thing in my opinion, and I'm naturally distrustful of it.
But by any means, the US media is NOT liberal. Ask your friends outside the US just how liberal it is (as long as they aren't from an Islamic nation, nearly all will tell you it isn't liberal at all, and I'd be willing to put money on it--and the only gambling I do, period, is on the horses at Churchill Downs on Derby Day and on the Powerball when it hits $50 million :) so it can't be said I'm a gambling fool :)
New paradigm... It makes sense (Score:5)
The AOL TW merger shows that this new behemoth would be the King of Content on all media.
The adoption of Linux by the waning Kinng of Hardware suggests that open source is the way of the future. Open hardware is sure to follow open software eventually, though not without strong opposition from the patent and trademark holders.
But, the people in control of proprietary hardware are sure to get a clue from the AOL TW super-entity. Content is the new commodity.
Linux has taken away the means, of controlling the means, of producing content. The Internet has given any Joe Shmoe the means to distribute it. The Computer has given everyone the tool to create content. Content is the new commodity.
To make any money, and have any power, you have to control CONTENT, not how it's made, not how it's distributed. It's economies of scale in the context of content.
AOL TW can out-content EVERYONE now. They can producte is faster, in greater volume, due to their bulk. They can distribute it faster and more cheaply. They can shout louder and longer than anyone else. With the exception of the occasional "I kiss you" and a little hampsterdance, nobody will have the opportunity to get unbiased media, simply because of the volume (yes, I mean it both ways) of AOL TW.
Now were back to the old days. Hammers and chisels (Linux) are free. It takes talent to be Michelangelo - and he died piss poor.
It's now all about the production of content. Technology is free and plentiful, and we're all free to use it. But, just because you have freedom of speach (or tech) does not mean you have anything intelligent to say. Or worse yet, you do, but nobody wants to hear it because AOL TW is showing interactive Jerry Springer.
This is a good thing (Score:5)
Remember AOL bought Time/Warner, not the other way around. That means AOL's internet presence is more valuable than the sum of all the many properties that make up Time/Warner Bros./CNN/HBO et. al.
Time/Warner doesn't need distribution, it already owns cable properties. It has gobs of content to put on those cable lines, nonetheless, it agreed to be purchased by a company with revenues only a third as large as itself!
This changes the valuation of everything, all internet companies are more valuable immediately, the future really is the internet, not magazines, television, cd's, movies, or any of the old media.
And That is a Good Thing (tm) because it is us who will create that future - we have very little access to older media forms, we don't own magazines, movie studios, record labels, television channels, etc. - but we are creating their replacements, and this merger shows that what we are creating is more valuable than what currently exists.
Ultimately what happened here is Time/Warner, the largest, most powerful, media company in the world agreed to be bought by an internet startup, in order to get better access to the internet, (read: to the future.) For without that access, that presence, they realized they would not be players in that future.
In terms of monopoly fears, Case and Levin announced that they would be supporting open access to their cable lines for isp competition, as soon as the exclusive contract with @home/excite ends next year, so we will be able to pick our isp over our cable modem, it need not be AOL/Time. Furthermore, Time/Warner is not the only source of content in the world, not even a third of it, this means the other content providers will be looking to partner with internet companies quickly, for fear of being left out.
We have created the future, in places like slashdot - AOL is nothing without it's subscribers, creating a dynamic little world - much like slashdot, albiet in a narrower way. I am looking forward to it, the reigns of power are in our hands now.
Alekzandr
AOL Time Warner not a monopoly. (Score:5)
As for Time Warner, There are loads of other HUGE media organizations in this world that behave much more foolishly. Let's talk about Disney and censorship. Let's talk about Sony and closed standards.
As for broadcasters/cable/sattelite services, Time Warner is hardly the only one out there. In fact where I used to live Time Warner sold to AT&T. There's PLENTY of other competion out there in the form of cable and sattelite companies. Not to mention FOX/ABC/NBC/CBS.
Yes AOL Time Warner will be huge, they might also be evil, but they're not a monopoly.
-Rich
Didn't they say the same thing about Sony? (Score:5)
*Everyone* worried about Sony, and using virtually the same exact argument that Katz used: that by owning the entire supply chain, Sony would rule the world. Sony (and by extension "Japan Inc.") would completely dominate entertainment, and completely wipe out any American participation in what is the largest sector of our economy in California: entertainment.
So why isn't this a Sony world? Why isn't every movie we see, every television show we watch, every band we listen to a Sony branded title? Why aren't we watching movies in Sony theaters using Sony A/V equipment eating Sony branded popcorn and Sony branded cola, as the pundits of the time predicted?
Simple.
First, at the time, Sony only understood electronics. Sony's management didn't (and still) don't get entertainment--and for five years the Japanese board of directors attempted to micromanage Sony's entertainment devisions like they did Sony's electronics division. And they floundered. Eventually Sony so screwed up the entertainment divisions that they had to divest themselves of some of the entertainment assets, and re-hire the American corporate heads they originally canned during the merger. So while today Sony still owns Sony Pictures, creates a few television shows, and are present in a big way in the music industry, they do so in fairly independant divisions who compete with each other as much as they cooperate.
The second reason why Sony didn't wipe out other entertainment groups was because anti-trust laws and good business sense didn't permit Sony from locking out non-Sony product from the Sony pipeline, or from preventing non-Sony companies and individuals from purchasing Sony services and equipment. That is, a movie produced by Fox has just as much chance to get shown at a United theater as a movie produced by Sony, on largly the same terms. In order for a horizontal company (a company such as Sony with a large number of holdings in a large number of different industries) to survive, they cannot rely on only themselves as a customer. Otherwise, how successful do you think a Sony Playstation would be if only Sony employees could buy one?
I think Sony is an extremely instructive example as to the future of AOL/Time Warner. It's pretty clear to me that the AOL managers only understand the Internet--their success in doing other forms of content production has been poor at best. By and large most of the content AOL has produced for their service has been produced by others--since AOL went to a flat-rate price structure they have produced almost no original content. And what content AOL has tried to produce hasn't exactly been all that stunning in the first place--more like "feel good" content which played well to the press while AOL's users bypassed it to descend into sex-related chat rooms.
And anyone who has followed the Babylon 5 news groups knows that Time Warner is operated as a bunch of independant little fifedoms--very much the same way Sony now operates. So it's not like the different divisions within Time Warner cooperate towards taking over the world in the first place.
Me, I don't think the AOL/Time Warner merger spells bad news for anyone. Except perhaps for the AOL/Time Warner employees who will get laid off over the next five years as the whole conglomerate downsizes as the AOL managers learn the right way to do media.
A Vertical Monopoly (Score:5)
The reason the Microsoft monopoly was so much more dangerous is because it was a horizontal monopoly. In essence, a roadblock that everyone had to go through. The merger between AOL and T/W does not represent the same type of threat. There is no roadblock I need to go through. With a vertical monopoly, I can simply go elsewhere. Not a threat at all.