I want this for my living room
“News Corp. may succeed at getting fees from cable operators, but I predict that will raise prices for consumers as more and more fees are passed along; consumers will be further enraged that they have to spend money for bundles of channels they don’t want or watch; and that will give regulators the cause they need to demand a la carte pricing — which will end up hurting and likely killing second- and third-tier cable channels subsidized by bundles and wil hurt cable operators as they end up charging less.”
This is along the lines of “the best thing for high gas prices is high gas prices.” The more the cable companies outprice the market, the greater the likelihood that people will give up their cable subscription.
On the contrary, this will help secondary and tertiary channels as more people opt for the Internet to connect to content. This shift will facilitate a purer meritocracy because it removes the distribution advantages enjoyed by the primary channels and networks.
Skype video calling makes it to the TV.
With apps running on the TV, Boxee Beta, the rumored iTunes TV subscription model, and News Corp making wicked demands for a bigger peice of the pie, I’m betting we will finally hit the inflection point this year and have a mass of consumers opt for web connected TV’s.
Scoble named Boxee as one of his top 10 hot companies to watch in 2010. Here’s to hoping Boxee (and maybe Apple too) can finally break the cable companies death grip on the television experience.
We all want to watch the content we like when we want to watch it, and we want an operating system that does more then just suffer lag time issues and offer minimal accounts of the programming. We also want a set top box that is smaller then a 1980’s era desktop computer and a user interface that is stylish and modern. If the Cable companies were out there pushing the envelope on innovation I wouldn’t be so hostile toward them. But when year after year goes by with the same nonsense (channel bundling that I don’t care about and/or is not even in my language, very poor software experience, minimal feature set, exhorbitant prices, etc.) I don’t really have much sympathy for them.
Boxee has the most opportunity to disrupt the cable companies and finally break their strangle hold on all this. Go Boxee!
I got rid of DirecTV. Saved myself over $100 a month. The future of television will be delivered from a different box.
This will be the year that getting only the media we want, when we want it, from the comfort of our couch will go mainstream. And we won’t pay a monthly fee to get it. Most of it is already available on the web, and soon it will be available in a format suited for 50 inch plasma screens.
The last gasp of cable and satellite is coming and they’re going to squeeze every last penny they can get before it ultimately happens. Raising prices will only quicken their demise.
Couldn’t agree more… the more they raise the price, the more attractive alternatives appear.
