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Take my money, HBO

takemymoneyhbo.com

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Re: Take my money, HBO

#291

Post by aidenn0 »

ckrailo wrote: post #94
aidenn0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it says "I think I'm entitled to your content and so I'm going to probably be a shitty customer"

So you're anti-entitlement to very easily copyable things? Why? To assure you I'm not trolling... take a look at this discussion before replying: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...

I think right now, HBO makes more money from selling to the cable companies than they could selling directly to people. The cable companies are very good customers of them, and I think that HBO as a company is better off not taking the money of people that feel entitled to their content.

HBO Go puts the technical infrastructure in place to eliminate the cable companies as customers if this ever changes, so they have some chance of surviving the likely collapse of the cable industry

Re: Take my money, HBO

#292

Post by trotsky »

nahname wrote: post #267
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…

One thing, that I find particularly interesting, is that the bittorrent numbers in the U.S. are decreasing. BitTorrent traffic is now responsible for 11.3% of all U.S. Internet traffic during peak hours, compared to 17.3% last year. While that number appears to be decreasing in the U.S. it is increasing most everywhere else. How do you rationalize such a phenomenon when the "aggregate of users" are just a bunch of th…

In raw numbers P2P traffic continues to grow considerably, it is just falling in percentage as other high bandwidth services become more common.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#293

Post by aidenn0 »

fjabre wrote: post #116
runako wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They would not be able to drop HBO. It's too valuable to their customers

They don't have to drop HBO, they just have to stop advertising it. A large fraction of cable ads I see have the not-so-subtle message of: "BUY HBO! IF YOU DONT HAVE HBO THAN YOU ARE MISSING OUT AND YOUR FRIENDS WILL THINK YOU ARE UNCOOL"

How much revenue does HBO get from that marketing?

Re: Take my money, HBO

#294

Post by Atrus6 »

etherealHN wrote: post #140
burke wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only one data point, but: I used to pirate (all of my) music. I have bought a grand total of one CD ever. Now I happily consume most of my music through a paid subscription to Rdio. Similarly, I pay for netflix. I (grudgingly) go to theatres occasionally. I don't own and have no desire to own a dvd player, and pirate movies occasionally when they're not conveniently available. Similarly, I pirate Game of Thrones,…

I still pirate all of my music, but I give money to and promote artists that I listen to. Rdio, Spotify, and other 'legal' solutions give pathetic amounts of money to the artist. I'd rather have a copy of the music in whatever format I want, on whatever device I want, played with whatever software I want, and spend a little extra time figuring out how to compensate the artist fairly for their contribution to my human…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4074288

Your logic works if you only are going to listen to a song a few times, but after a certain threshold, the artist would receive more money than from a CD or iTunes purchase.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#295

Post by falling »

cgmorton wrote: post #279
falling wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also pay an Rdio subscription and enjoy it, but I still buy the records I find myself listening more often. My reason is simply this: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...

Okay lets do some simple math on this. If I buy a song off iTunes, the artist gets $.09 Every time I listen to it on Rhapsody, they get $.0022 Some quick division: .09/.0022 = ~41 What this means is that, if I've listened to a song less than 40 times, the artist makes more if I buy it off iTunes. But once I've listened to it 41 times or more, the artist is making more profit if all those listens were on Rhapsody. Now…

Despite the irritating and condescending tone, that’s a good argument.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#296

Post by shmerl »

sp332 wrote: post #276
shmerl wrote: post #50

Did HBO ever consider asking some fixed price per simple download? No streaming, no complicated subscription services. Just payments per files. There can't be any logical reason not to offer it, if it's so widely pirated already. They can only convince some of those who pirate not to do it, if they provide the same level of simplicity and convenience. In any case, it can't make it any worse for them, than it is now.…

Sure, you can get it on iTunes that way.

Not right away, and not without DRM (i.e. as a portable file). So it can't compete with pirated copies that way.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#297

Post by romey »

charlieok wrote: post #265
cletus wrote: post #145

I certainly understand the motivation for this but HBO is actually in a difficult position. - HBO drives a lot of cable purchase - Some of that money goes to the cable companies for data carriage - The cable companies know HBO sells cable - Any alternative distribution means risks the cable companies losing income - Cable companies losing income means that HBO risks either being dropped from the cable companies or ha…

I will not buy cable tv. Any information service (tv, voice, whatever) is only interesting to me if it's delivered over internet protocol. If a lot more people made this decision, there would be no problem here.

But, given that many of the larger ISPs (at least those available to residential customers in my area -- Comcast and Verizon) are owned by companies that also provide cable (and telephone) services, what's to stop them from simply bundling cable service with your internet service and charging a bunch extra? I realize that not everyone has this problem, but in many areas there's almost an "information monopoly" with regards to web service.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#298

Post by kin »

dbbolton wrote: post #232
kin wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, is waiting really the point we're discussing? We're not talking about piracy in general. We're talking about HBO and GoT here. Not watching the show within a week of air is not watching it at all. If you participate in this at all, you'd know what I'm talking about. Waiting is NOT an option. If you're going go to an extreme analogy, I will say to some this is equivalent to watching the Superbowl a week later.…

Personally, I watch shows based on their content, not when they air. Fortunately episode X will still have the same content if I download it tonight or buy it a year from now on a DVD. I won't enjoy it any less just because people aren't talking about it anymore, and I actually prefer it that way. So waiting is an option for me. I don't have some kind of irrational fear that I'll have an anxiety attack if I don't see…

Right, and that's fine. But again, your argument really isn't part of the conversation then is it?

There are plenty of shows out there that I can wait until it shows up in the 5$ bargain bin and I'll pick it up and watch it. There are some shows that because I loved it I'll buy the entire collection edition.

But this conversation is for television watchers that watch things as they air. If there is a show that must be seen the moment it airs, there status quo is not a win-win situation and is a constant struggle between overpriced cable and cheap consumers resorting to piracy.

Re: Take my money, HBO

#299

Post by GFischer »

icebraining wrote: post #256
rickmb wrote: post #209

It's ironic that the amount in the form is in US dollars. In much the rest of the world, it's already pretty much game over. A whole generation has learned to "pirate" these shows because it's the only available option. This is the reality in 2012 outside the US: ordinary people in offices and on schoolyards are discussing TV shows that aren't legally available in those countries . It's not considered anything specia…

Where is this? Where I live, most people don't know English nearly well enough to watch the shows without subtitles, and community created subs are very hit-and-miss, both in availability and quality.

Uruguay, Argentina - search for "Cuevana.tv", it was shut down a few times I think, and other services.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuevana

My coworkers which aren't especially tech-savyy watch movies from Cuevana and similar sites, many of them get their children to configure it for them :) .

Edit: thenextweb went so far as to call it "the new Napster"

http://thenextweb.com/la/2011/11/25/is-the-argentine-online-...

and their owners have been in legal trouble several times

http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/03/13/the-noose-tightens-aroun...

Re: Take my money, HBO

#300

Post by masklinn »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #261
masklinn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lost opportunity is in fact lost value. I know this is a popular justification for curtailing liberties, but surely you can see that this makes no actual sense.

So now it's "curtailing liberties" to ask someone to pay for value they are provided. Right.

You seem to have no issue ascribing ideas they have never written to people who reply to your comments. I therefore assume (and assumed) you are in full and complete agreement with the various *AA over the handling of piracy. Including but not limited to rights-restriction, network monitoring, traffic shaping and mass legal threats.

Also, your comment was idiotic and I was spinning it the other way 'round to demonstrate this.

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