Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up.

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Jun 22, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Jeroen van Aart wrote:

> Joe Greco wrote:
> > that things are changing.  The number of TV's in a household are going
> > up.  Some can now stream directly to the TV.  I have numerous devices
>
> How can it go up even more? I thought every bedroom and living room has one by now, in the average family house. In 
> my experience families have fared pretty well getting these TV signals through more traditional means.
>
> > that stream Internet radio audio, something that would have seemed
> > completely frivolous 15 years ago, but today my AV receiver comes with
>
> There has been in place for many decades multiple perfectly viable alternatives of getting TV or radio signals into 
> your house. Using your good old antenna, satellite, cable... Considering these alternatives I'd say the idea of the 
> internet replacing old existing infrastructures shouldn't be the top priority.
>
> Now if you mean added functionality or special ways of doing things that delivering content over the internet can 
> provide I can see a point.
>
> Be that as it may, I don't think current methods and techniques in use will scale well to fully replace antennas, 
> satellite and cable to provide tv and radio signals.
>
> (remembering for example the recent discussion about multicast)
They won't, but, that's not what consumers think about when they decide where to get their content.

Consumers look at convenience, cost, and availability. In some cases, quality also enters the picture.

If you don't believe that consumer content acquisition is shifting away from traditional methods towards 
internet-oriented mechanisms rapidly, you haven't been paying attention to the bandwidth growth at Netflix as just one 
example. Hulu, Youtube, and even the various networks own web-based episode streaming services are all additional 
examples that cannot be ignored.

We're going to have to either find a way to convince consumers to change direction, or, we're going to have to develop 
new methods and techniques that will scale to fully replace antennas, satellite, and cable because that's what 
consumers are starting to do.

Owen