Comment No market power (Score 1) 158
Such a suit against Apple would likely fail because Apple lacks market power over smartphones. Microsoft has about 90 percent share of operating systems for new laptop and desktop PCs.
The major content creators (Viacom, Disney, Fox, etc) force cable companies to bundle their offerings, so if you want something popular (say, Nickelodeon) you also end up with the second rate crap or worse (Nick at Nite, CMT, etc). It's very anti-consumer, but no politician wants to get on the bad side of media.
If each provider wants to package its own channels, then why can't people subscribe to, say, just the Turner package (TBS, TNT, TCM, CNN, HLN, Cartoon Network) or just the Disney package (ABC Family, Disney, Disney Junior, ESPN, ESPN2)?
Also, to pull us gently back in the direction of the topic, sports leagues are selling streaming apps.
And then proceed to make exclusive contracts with cable networks that result in games being blacked out on the streaming apps.
The Bible and Koran are for more violent and objectionable than any Shakespeare work.
Especially when you get past the sermon on humankind's futility in "Ecclesiastes" and hit the fifty shades of grey that are "Song of Solomon".
But Google's stance here *is* evil, the people they are hurting here are their own customers
YouTube's customers are its advertisers. If an application offers ad-free access to YouTube, the paying customers (that is, the advertisers) are right to feel screwed.
If you want to watch it live you either (a) need to pay for it or (b) need to go to a bar. I'll go to a bar. It's usually more fun anyway.
Option (b) won't work for parents or college underclassmen in a 21-to-enter state, unless by "bar" you mean something like Buffalo Wild Wings.
actually going to the game
Cable is far cheaper per year than season tickets for you and junior to two sports. Attending games in person is also impractical for people who follow an out-of-market team, such as fans who moved away from their favorite team, fans of the team associated with the university that a family member attends, and fans whose favorite player got traded to another team.
or streaming it where available
It probably isn't available. If it's shown OTA or on a national or regional sports network in your area, it's blacked out online.
or going to venues that screen the game.
That depends on how many other people at Buffalo Wild Wings want to watch the same game that you and junior want to watch, and restaurant food is still more expensive than home-cooked food. Or if by "venues" you mean a neighbor's house, that eventually gets ruled out as well.
The Rachel Maddow Show can be streamed from nbcnews.com.
Live, or delayed a day and requiring user interaction after each clip?
There are plenty of sports to watch with an antenna, if that's your thing.
In 2012 and 2013, some games in the NHL Stanley Cup series were shown on Versus (now NBCSN). That's the finals of professional ice hockey, as if the second half of the Super Bowl were on ESPN. The head of one of the households in my extended family is a fan of NFL, NHL, and UFC, and he told me that should money become tight, he'd rather take himself and others in his household back to dial-up than cut off his sports telecasts.
Why on earth would they say anything that would rock the boat?
When the cheese moves, PwC's clients need to know when, where, and how to move with it. Businesses that do not move with the cheese don't stay in business very long.
Rather, you should complain that the content producers refuse to license to netflix
But that'd still be complaining. Rather, you can consider making your own content, with blackjack and hookers.
Larry Niven, Ringworld. First appearance of Speaker-to-Animals.
Only "first" in the sense of failed attempts to get the earliest post on a Slashdot story. Ringworld was first published in 1970. The Story of Doctor Dolittle was first published in 1920. Other examples are older.
if I feel like it I can just buy a season of a show for $14.
Can you buy a season of, say, Monday Night Football or The Rachel Maddow Show for that much?
so the population that [subscribes to multichannel pay television] will age out over time even if the streaming services don't change anything.
Will people really "age out" of following the major professional and collegiate sport leagues over time? I was under the impression that sport fandom tended to be something that was passed down from generation to generation.
This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered french toast in the renaissance. - Steven Wright, comedian
