North American Network Operators Group

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Re: death of the net predicted by deloitte -- film at 11

  • From: Stephen Sprunk
  • Date: Sun Feb 11 21:03:55 2007

Thus spake "Geo." <[email protected]>
TIVO type setup with a massive archive of every show so you can not
only watch this weeks episode but you can tivo download any show
from the last 6 years worth of your favorite series is one heck of a
draw over cable or satellite and might be enough to motivate the
public
to move to a different service. A better tivo than tivo.

As I've pointed out before, the pirates _are already doing this_, and it works. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen if the Net will survive 1000x as many users. P2P have interesting scaling characteristics; 1000x as many users doesn't mean 1000x as many bit-miles. In fact, higher densities may reduce the bit-miles -- and network operators pay for bit-miles, not bits.

As for making money, just stick a commercial on the front of every
download.

BitTorrent, Inc. is working deals to distribute DRMed files freely over P2P and individual users would just purchase a license to view the files after the download is complete. (Of course, I assume this'll be cracked relatively soon, but like with iTMS, most people will pay anyways)

The alternative is free viewing with more product placement, inline ads
at the top/bottom of the screen, or a little header with "this program
is brought to you commercial-free by <sponsor>", like I've seen on
soccer (football to non-US folks) games.  Commercials in their present
form are dying fast with the advent of DVRs, and on-demand shows will
destroy them -- though that won't stop some dinosaurs from trying it.

S

Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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