I don't get charged for every movie - just the one I paid the ticket for.
Ah, see there you're making assumptions the industry doesn't (and can't afford) to make.
you ARE paying for other movies. For every blockbuster that turns in a 1000% profit, that has to account for the 10 other films that are either expensive flops (Australia, anyone?) or are the art films that are award winners and well crafted, but will never make a profit.
it's part of the diversification that is absolutely necessary in the entertainment business to keep from falling out completely when your one blockbuster product suddenly turns into nothing. woe would be warner, for example, should the potter craze suddenly disappear after movie 6 thanks to the fact that there's no more demand for the books.
keep in mind, under an ala carte system: you would never know about any new channels, because nobody would ever need to be told of them. you picked your channels and that's that: do you REALLY think you're going to go through that process all over again? no. you're never going to change your selection until you change cable companies after a move.
this, therefore, stifles innovation and creativity because the price to market for a new channel becomes too high, even for the firms that own several.
under that system, there would be too few subscribers for Discovery networks to have bothered building up The Science Channel 6 years ago. even animal planet would have been a tough sell. under the current system, they can force cable companies to pick it up in exchange for better rates on the others they already had, and people find out about it and eventually embrace it.
like democracy - the system is broken and doesn't work, but it really is better than anything else because anything else will result in the LOSS of channels and the lack of innovation for those that are left (struggling to hold onto the few subscribers they have, finicky as they are) and the impossibility for a new channel to enter the market.
think about all of the things you might not know about except by the complete accident that you happened to have flipped to page X or stumbled upon flipping through to channel Y. most of the cool stuff we (geeks) have is a result of accidental discovery and word of mouth, and not by an active advertising campaign. we get lucky that the cool thing seeps through the current system.
now when the only way the cool thing can get to us it through advertising to our demographic that actively rejects any attempts to market and goes out of its way of putting ad-blockers everywhere? NOTHING gets through, and that's that, we'd be stuck in the life of boredom of the status quo that the rest of the country is so content with.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-12-31 10:02 pm (UTC)Ah, see there you're making assumptions the industry doesn't (and can't afford) to make.
you ARE paying for other movies. For every blockbuster that turns in a 1000% profit, that has to account for the 10 other films that are either expensive flops (Australia, anyone?) or are the art films that are award winners and well crafted, but will never make a profit.
it's part of the diversification that is absolutely necessary in the entertainment business to keep from falling out completely when your one blockbuster product suddenly turns into nothing. woe would be warner, for example, should the potter craze suddenly disappear after movie 6 thanks to the fact that there's no more demand for the books.
keep in mind, under an ala carte system: you would never know about any new channels, because nobody would ever need to be told of them. you picked your channels and that's that: do you REALLY think you're going to go through that process all over again? no. you're never going to change your selection until you change cable companies after a move.
this, therefore, stifles innovation and creativity because the price to market for a new channel becomes too high, even for the firms that own several.
under that system, there would be too few subscribers for Discovery networks to have bothered building up The Science Channel 6 years ago. even animal planet would have been a tough sell. under the current system, they can force cable companies to pick it up in exchange for better rates on the others they already had, and people find out about it and eventually embrace it.
like democracy - the system is broken and doesn't work, but it really is better than anything else because anything else will result in the LOSS of channels and the lack of innovation for those that are left (struggling to hold onto the few subscribers they have, finicky as they are) and the impossibility for a new channel to enter the market.
think about all of the things you might not know about except by the complete accident that you happened to have flipped to page X or stumbled upon flipping through to channel Y. most of the cool stuff we (geeks) have is a result of accidental discovery and word of mouth, and not by an active advertising campaign. we get lucky that the cool thing seeps through the current system.
now when the only way the cool thing can get to us it through advertising to our demographic that actively rejects any attempts to market and goes out of its way of putting ad-blockers everywhere? NOTHING gets through, and that's that, we'd be stuck in the life of boredom of the status quo that the rest of the country is so content with.