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Take my money, HBO

takemymoneyhbo.com

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Re: Take my money, HBO

#171

Post by kamaal »

ap3 wrote: post #16

Have you guys thought about how many people are already paying for HBO ? Is HBO hurting for money? Or is it just a bunch of geeks trying to get hbo for cheap? I know anti-piracy is not always popular but they are creating popular and original shows, why not support them?

>>Is HBO hurting for money?

I am pretty sure HBO charges money such that they hedge for losses that happen through piracy.

Few days back, I met a guy who runs a cab fleet. He pays his drivers once a week for the fuel they need. On further inquiry on home much he pays, it turned he always pays for atleast 4-5 litres of extra fuel a day. The drivers cheat, they say they need more fuel for lesser distance and cite mileage problems. But he was dead sure, that was not the case.

How did he hedge for all that. He takes fuel theft into consideration while billing his customers. Drivers don't loose out, the cab company doesn't. But consumers pay a little extra.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#172

Post by tg3 »

caf wrote: post #133
smackfu wrote: post #20

This was a good write-up of an interview with the HBO co-CEO: http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism Worth reading before spouting the typical "I don't understand why HBO doesn't want my $5 a month."

The interesting thing is that this seems to imply that HBO makes most of its revenue from people who don't use their product. This in turn implies some economic actors here are not acting rationally (for example, there are a significant number of subscribers who are willing to pay more for cable bundles containing HBO, but then don't actually watch HBO ).

I actually do watch HBO, but I can see exactly how this works (and how I got sucked into the super-premium package). You sign up for the standard internet+tv bundle, for say $60. Then you get HD for an extra $10 or $15, then the DVR is only an extra $5 a month on top of that, and then they ask you about HBO. And you think, "I've seen some good shows on HBO, that's worth the additional small percentage of my cable bill (now up to $80/month)".

And then you don't watch HBO (or at least not as often as warrants the money you spent on it). It's like all those 'options' you get when buying a car (Only $200 for floormats? that sounds like a deal!). I think it's called the bundling effect or something similar.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#173

Post by jblock »

HBO is a Time Warner subsidiary. Until that's not a thing, this just simply won't happen. I'd like it to, but the business realities just make it unfeasible.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#174

Post by vibrunazo »

trotsky wrote: post #107

I worked on several commercial digital music projects in the time span between early napster and entrenched itunes. One regularly repeated meme of the era was that people didn't want to pirate music, they just wanted it "as easy" or "no drm" or "ala carte" or "all you can eat". While statistically these were all guaranteed to be true for at least some users, in aggregate they were red herrings. The industry was in th…

Why do humans are always trying to oversimplify that which is already simple? People choose to pirate because their impression is that the pros (easier, no drm, cheaper) outweigh the cons (risk of getting caught, risk of all art ceasing to exist). That's all, just a simple pros vs cons we all quickly do for every decision we ever do in our lives.

No need to try to find cheap pseudo-psychological explanation to why people cheat just so you can justify why you feel comfortable calling piracy "theft". It is what it is, trying to oversimplify the simple with pre-made labels, will just end up making the simple look complicated (as your explanation) for no good reason. Because your oversimplification is throwing variables away, you end up having to make stuff up to explain the gaps, which will always be an imprecise bandage. Which will have more gaps, and need more bandage. So you end up with these Frankenstein hypothesis that won't get you anywhere. All of this mess can be easily avoided if you accept people pirate simply because the pros outweigh the cons.

Now I'll just go back to building a solution instead of whining.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#175

Post by lengarvey »

skeletonjelly wrote: post #155
codexon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian bandwidth is atrociously expensive too.

Unlimited for $60 isn't too bad (including line rental)

From which ISP?

The quality fluctuates wildly. If its $60 unlimited from a good ISP like iinet then it's a good deal, if it's with TPG or Dodo then it's not worth the hassle.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#176

Post by p0ckets »

biot wrote: post #144
jquery wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this question is asked in good faith, but I'll try to respond anyway. The answer is we don't live in a perfect world, and we all have to make pragmatic choices. If there was an alternative to petroleum that involved painlessly breaking a wrongheaded law, I would do it in a heartbeat. Choosing to pirate Game of Thrones is a win/win. I get the content I want and I don't enrich cable executives who not onl…

How does your action result in a win for the thousands of people (actors, extras, film crew, set construction crew, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, musicians, etc.) who worked on Game of Thrones? If everyone followed your lead and nobody paid a cent to HBO they would all be out of a job. It's only because others are willing to reward the creators for their work that your freeloading is possible.

It doesn't. But the alternative, not watching the show, doesn't either. He also never claims that his actions would benefit anybody. (You probably have the moral high ground here, I just don't agree with this argument.)

Re: Take my money, HBO

#177

Post by akira2501 »

runako wrote: post #55
akira2501 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see his argument.. but why not just partner with ISPs? If HBO doesn't want my $8 directly, then why not let AT&T (or whoever) charge me an extra $8/mo along with my DSL (or whatever) bill and get HBOGO? It would be nearly identical to their current model, but with different types of subscriber organizations distributing their content for them.

Because this is an act of war against other carries that currently carry HBO. Those carriers can drop HBO and cause revenue to drop much faster than broadband-only HBOGO subscribers will bring in new revenue. It's trading an existing, stable, proven revenue source for one that is none of the above at scale. Edit: This is a summary of one of HBO's arguments. The dcurtis post examines a couple of other arguments. Posit…

I'll wait and see how Netflix does on producing original content; HBO seems really good at it. Over the years they've shot some amazing shows and the product speaks for itself. Even though I am a current Netflix subscriber I would still easily add HBOGO to my monthly bills for premium access to their content.

Also.. their largest carriers also serve a lot of cable internet, for most it wouldn't be adding a competition so much as adding another way to get at subscribers money. I'm not so sure they would be in a huge rush to drop them.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#178

Post by biot »

p0ckets wrote: post #176
biot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your action result in a win for the thousands of people (actors, extras, film crew, set construction crew, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, musicians, etc.) who worked on Game of Thrones? If everyone followed your lead and nobody paid a cent to HBO they would all be out of a job. It's only because others are willing to reward the creators for their work that your freeloading is possible.

It doesn't. But the alternative, not watching the show, doesn't either. He also never claims that his actions would benefit anybody. (You probably have the moral high ground here, I just don't agree with this argument.)

The issue is with calling it win/win:

  > Choosing to pirate Game of Thrones is a win/win. I get
  > the content I want and I don't enrich cable executives
Both wins are wins for the pirate with no consideration to others. This is a parasite's definition of win/win.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#179

Post by sureshv »

sg214 wrote: post #44

HBO as an add-on to cable packages costs ~$20. If HBO were to offer it as a standalone service, they would have to handle billing, subscription management, increased marketing budget to make up for marketing that cable/sat currently offers for them, etc. So unless a critical mass of people are willing to pay AT LEAST $30 per month, this is a lost cause.

HBO currently gets around $8 per subscriber, typically you are paying double that to the cable company so unless the overhead is 100% I doubt they would need to charge more than $15 per subscriber. The real problem is distribution and making up for the fact that cable companies are guaranteeing a certain number of subscribers (in the millions).

The other reason is that Time Warner wont risk their other channels being unbundled from the basic tier such as TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon, etc. They make more on some of those channels (Ads + subscriber fee) than HBO.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#180

Post by sureshv »

sg214 wrote: post #93
MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cost around $20, but do we know what HBO's cut is?

HBO's cut is very small (< $3 I think). But the cable and satellite cos pay a fixed fee per base cable/sat sub to HBO but then upsell their own customers and recoup that cost. Using the $20 as a proxy for about what HBO gets, even though it's a lot more complicated than that in reality.

HBO gets around $8 per subscriber, ESPN for reference gets around $4 but its on the basic tier so it has many more subscribers.
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