Dish Network Wants To Make Hulu Even More Useless
from the fighting-consumer-interests dept
It's really sad watching the TV industry shoot itself in the foot. You would think that, given the opportunity to watch the music industry and the movie industry screw up their attempts to deal with the online world, the TV folks (of everyone) might recognize that fighting "free" and fighting what consumers want to do is a mistake. And yet, we've seen over and over again, the TV guys are fighting the internet as much as possible, because of various deals that make them billions (at the expense of consumers) and from which they have no desire to go away. It's why they remain in complete denial that people are actually cutting the cord and going online-only.However, while they're in denial publicly, they clearly are afraid of the internet. It's why they keep forcing Hulu to do stupid things that limit what users want, guaranteeing that the real disruption in the TV-online space will come from companies other than Hulu. But, even so, the TV guys keep looking to make Hulu even worse for consumers than it already is. The latest example is a Dish Network exec claiming that Hulu shouldn't make content available for free right after it airs, instead saying that it should wait 30 days. Why? Because Dish wants people to be forced to keep their satellite subscription to Dish, where they can catch up on missed shows via the disastrous "TV Everywhere," plan.
There is no good reason for Hulu to support this. All it does is encourage unauthorized access to content by making it harder to find legally. But what it does show, quite clearly, is that a company like Dish doesn't care at all about what consumers want or what's best for consumers. Yet another reason why it's ripe for disruption.
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Filed Under: internet, tv
Companies: dish network, hulu
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Re:
You mean partitioning. These companies thrive on the ability to divide things up into as many separate salable chunks as they can. Why give the consumers the "premium" channels when they can partition them into a different category and charge extra for them? Is it something superior to what the basic package offers? No, but their content is more homogeneous and that lets them partition them into a higher-priced tier.
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Partitioning will also go away but I actually do mean bundling. Magazines, newspapers, individual television channels are all bundles. Think of the channel, newspaper, magazine, as a container. The containers CNBS, NBC, ABC are bundled individual shows.
Going back to what happened to the record labels we saw that people prefered singles. There was no need to buy the entire album when all you wanted was one or two tracks. History will repeat itself, TV will become individual shows, Newspapers and magazines will become individual articles. Its the trend, and no amount of wishing for the blue fairy to stop it will help in the slightest.
People only want what interests them and what they like.
I'm on a horse ... ;) I keep forgetting to add that.
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U R Preaching to the choir.
Here is a quick prediction. Google will not do anything to get around the TV station blocks on GTV. That includes paying for content. You will see people creating hacks that allow for GTV box to appear to be something other than a GTV box and access blocked content.
Google is playing a waiting game. The current system of cable operators being reamed for content, and passing the cost on to their subscribers, is unsustainable and will collapse as more people move to cut the cable cord. The result will be the studios trying to charge the consumers directly. This will be a massive fail. It will also lead to the cable companies attempting to charge per gigabyte. Which will end up being a massive fail also. For this whole thing to shake out it will take about 5-7 years.
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As for the block they do not block chrome on any sites now, it does not work well on some but not blocked, this would be a big deal if the content weasels tried to segregate browsers, i am sure google would speak up as they already have about this.
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Mistaken Customers
Of course, having more and better 'product' would allow them to charge their customers higher rates, but they likely aren't thinking that far ahead either.
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Re: Mistaken Customers
With whom does the rancher attempt to maintain better relations, the cattle or the butcher?
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The only happy cows in CA don't know they're gonna be steak in a couple months.
Wait, what is an analogy again? I don't know.
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Re: Mistaken Customers
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Re: Re: Mistaken Customers
I could see a reasonable (and one-time!) charge for hardware, and perhaps the running a cable to your domicile if necessary. But every month? Nope.
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From the offices of the networks....
Were beating the competition down with lawsuits and forcing them to do stupid things.
Were trying to get the DVR outlawed.
We yelled and screamed about time-shifting.
We constantly call our customers criminals.
We lobby government to keep our monopolies in place.
Why the heck are we loosing our customers to the internet, and why do they keep pirating our tv shows? It makes no since!
/sarc
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Re: From the offices of the networks....
"Sense", not since.
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Thankfully SyFy reuns new SGU later that night and 1-2 other times before the next new one airs but all shows aren't scheduled like that.
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Odd...
DISH is currently offering the Google TV appliance for $179 (retails for $299) to customers AND letting it integrate into the DISH DVRs ($4/month for integration), so they work together.
I realize HULU blocks Google TV, but this is easily resolved by changing the browser client.
So, they want to slow HULU down on release dates, but yet want their customers to buy Google TV so they can watch YouTube, HULU, etc...
Just odd to me...
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Here's the thing...
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Re: Here's the thing...
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Your mother. Your Mother would be useless in this context.
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Your mother. Your mother would be useless in this context.
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Re: Re: Here's the thing...
Your mother. Your mother would be useless in this context.
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Re: Here's the thing...
1. We fix all the problems of the world so he doesn't have to do this blog any more
2. You visit the Cwf + RtB section of Techdirt (link at top of page) and select the Silence Techdirt option.
I'll leave it up to you which one is easier to complete before Thanksgiving.
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Re: Re: Here's the thing...
I am kind of excited-afraid to find out what Mike would blog about if techdirt was shut down for a year.
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I have Direct TV...
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Re: I have Direct TV...
I can't watch G4 which I loved, and have to settle for a few other channels that didn't cater to the gamer/techie crowd. We never got a lot on the regular tube but G4 really sealed the deal in holding my interest. Now, I can get movies online along with TV anytime I want. Why should I pay for the service?
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They will do everything they can to make sure that nobody else can get in their way of over-charging consumers
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30 day wait? Who cares!
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I have to watch them bootleg on the internet since they aren't available anywhere else.
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@Hephaestus
Without a doubt, Masnick would continue his blogging escapades over at Masnick.org. Over there, he talks about trimming the hedges, aerating the yard, and painting the inside of closets in his finished basement. It's one of my favorites and in my RSS reader! Check it out!
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Hulu has been and continues
I'll keep my DISH and DVR.
When Hulu wants to cut the crap with the blocking, and the removing of content after x days, and putting the new shows up at the same time aired... oh... and forget the charge idea... not happening. If I am dumping DISH to get the stuff online then I have paid my admission er subscription fee via my internet access fee.
So I will pocket the $$ for DISH, or possibly up the level of internet and spend a little of what I was spending on DISH for high speed... BUT....
If Hulu etc.. are blocking this, blocking that, etc.. nope. I'll keep my DISH, and probably will for several years more.
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Re: Hulu has been and continues
You act like anyone at Hulu actually wants to do any of these things.
The reason Hulu has these "antifeatures" is because cable companies hope everyone will act just like you.
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Bell has recently been granted permission by the CRTC to force DSL wholesalers & resellers to implement a 60GB/month cap and charge $1.19/GB in overage fees.
So, if you get rid of Bell's satellite TV service and sign up with an independent DSL provider who is a Bell wholesaler, just how much streaming video can you watch?
With netflix, 1 hour = 1GB unless it's in HD. Then 1 hour = 2GB. Let's say you watch 30 hours/month in standard definition. That will consume 30GB. If you download video games from steam, you might consume an additional 10-20GB. VOIP doesn't consume much but it will still add to your bandwidth totals. So will watching clips on youtube. If you download files in addition to using your Internet for all of the above, you will easily go over 60GB/month.
As long as these companies control access to both TV and Internet they can afford to make ridiculous statements that they know aren't true. They don't care. They have most of us by the balls and they're going to use every dirty trick they can think of to get more and more money out of us.
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