That's one of the big issues I see with the "first world". We don't actually make the stuff any more that got us to that position in the first place. How long before the rest of the world doesn't need us any more?

This argument pretty much disproves itself. Other countries need countries like the USA because of the point you are making. Manufacturing products for US companies is a big part of the economy in a lot of countries. As countries like China continue to develop their manufacturing industry they will continue to need Western countries to provide a market for their home grown products.

This is how the world economy works. Different countries economies are based on different things and they trade.

All of which seems to mean I would need to provide a landing page to explain about cookies before taking the user to any pages on which analytics are applied

Most of the implementations I have seen so far just land the user on the page, but don't load the analytics javascript. The page has a "Accept cookies read more on our cookie description page" bar across the top and when the user clicks Accept it then loads the javascript. Others just have a bar that states "By continuing to use this website you are consenting to us using cookies to collect non-identifiable analytics" with a link to a cookie policy.

On the Internet, this is not the case, as long as someone is willing to pay for it then the studios can keep producing their shows and can keep distributing them.

I don't think we are quite there yet. I don't know of any traditionally produced TV show that is exclusively available online and funded by online viewing/subscriptions. I say traditionally produced to distinguish a show with 20-60 minute episodes produced by a big studio from web series like The Guild. By making this distinction I am not attempting to say web shows like The Guild aren't 'real TV' I'm just making the point that there is a big difference between the cost and business model of a show with 5 min episodes and a traditional studio TV show.

What advertising revenue? Does HBO have ads now?

HBOs shows are syndicated to other channels which do show ads. Also all of the other cable channels that HBO works as a loss leader for show adverts.

Why not just give away the TV series for free to everyone, then sell physical goods to the biggest fans?

Because there is no equivalent of concert tickets for TV shows. DVDs would be the closest comparison, but they are just the same show people have already seen. One of the big reason people pay for expensive concert tickets is because a live concert is a very different experience from listening to a CD.

Funding a show like Game of Thrones with DVD and tshirt sales would be an incredibly risky venture, if not completely impossible. DVD sales are a long tail revenue stream so you would have to fund the whole first season speculatively and then potentially wait years to recoup those costs. Then 12 months later people are expecting a second season, where does the money for that come from? The percentage of people who will run out and buy the DVDs for a show that just finished on TV is pretty low.

I think a lot of the people posting these 'alternative business models' vastly underestimate how much a show like Game of Thrones costs to make. The estimated budget for the first season was about $45 million

Do you really think that HBO will cancel the show? The producers will just shop around some other channels who will most definitely be jumping to buy it and air it on non-premium channels.

Yes and those non-premium channels won't be able to pay anywhere near enough to cover the cost of making the show. Making TV shows is very expensive, making TV shows with top rate actors in fantasy settings that require extensive location shooting, costumes, sets and props is fantastically expensive. This can't be paid for with DVD sales and merch.

Shows like Game of Thrones can be made because they serve as loss leaders for the cable networks. If cable subscriptions fall significantly because people are downloading the shows online then HBO will cancel it in a heartbeat, they would be crazy not to. This happens to shows all the time. If ratings drop below a certain level then the advertising revenue isn't high enough to make the show worthwhile and it is cancelled. This is especially true of shows that are by their very subject matter very expensive to make. One of the reasons Firefly was cancelled was that it was an expensive show to make and Fox didn't think the ratings were high enough to make it pay.

Bingo. I'd pay more for HBO Go than I do for all of Netflix, but I don't have the option unless I *also* pay for cable, and I want exactly nothing from cable except HBO. I don't want to pay $100+ for the DVDs because I doubt I'll re-watch the show.

Making epic fantasy tv shows is very expensive. The only reason HBO can afford to make something as lavish as Game of Thrones is that the cable companies will pay them a lot of money for the show. The cable companies are willing to pay that money because then they can use access to HBO as a drive for people to subscribe to cable. It isn't as simple as being able to say "I only want to watch Game of Thrones so I should only have to pay for that". If Game of Thrones wasn't able to drive sales of cable subscriptions, and generate advertising revenue on the channels it is shown on, then it would either never have been made or it would be much lower budget and nothing like the show as it is now.

Except Game of Thrones isn't a requirement for life so your comparison with food is ludicrous.

HBO create Game of Thrones and choose to share it with people who subscribe to their TV channel, or buy DVDs from them. While it is in their interests to sell access to as many people as possible no-one has a 'right' to watch it. They could choose to not let anyone see it, just make the show and then put it in a cupboard somewhere. At the end of the day it is their property and they can do what they want with it. Morality doesn't enter into the equation at all.

To record something on a modern DVR you just select the programme and then press the button for "record this every time it is on". From then on the DVR records that programme every time is is shown. You don't have to worry about the time, day or remembering to record the next episode it just does it. The whole point of the DVR is that you can just tell it what shows you like watching and it records them all for you. Then when you want to watch some TV you can pick and choose from the shows it has downloaded recorded already.

Grappling around for a phone in my pocket and unlocking the screen, etc. just to see the time is actually a burden and a clumsy way to get the time.

I would hardly describe checking the time on a phone to be a burden. I can't think of any phones that don't display the time on the lock screen so unlocking the phone is unnecessary. Also 'grappling around for a phone in my pocket' seems a bit of a stretch. Put hand in pocket, pull out phone, look at phone, hardly a difficult process, it does make me wonder how big your pockets are and what you have rattling around in the same one as your phone.

Watches are useful as they let you know the time at a glance but they are hardly indispensable. I normally wear one but when the battery ran out recently I coped fine for a couple of months just using my phone until I got round to replacing it.