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by atombender 2529 days ago
And yet you can get a wealth of TVs and movies from various streaming services today at around $10/mo each.

If studios all pooled their IP in a single marketplace under a compulsory, fair licensing scheme, the calculation would be about the same, because currently most streaming services don't overlap much (though in some cases you can find movies on both iTunes and Google Play, for example).

What would change is that the current aggregators' revenue would shrink and their ability to have exclusive content would disappear. A company like Netflix would become just another content provider competing for views in a single marketplace.

Perhaps a better analogy is the movie theater business. Movie theaters generally show movies from all rights holders (though I'm sure studios also compete for the best screens for tentpole launches). Theaters share revenue with studios. In principle, anyone can go to any theater to see a movie of their choice, and theaters can show the movies they want as long as they license them. It's not on-demand, but that's pretty irrelevant. Also, I can start a movie theater and start showing movies, as long as I abide by the licensing rules.