[II2II]

> I agree that the quasi-monopolies of early Netflix or Steam through most of it's history are arguably bad, but the irony is that they're the most consumer-friendly ways to distribute media while effectively curbing piracy.

I doubt that would remain the case indefinitely. There would be too much temptation to increase revenues once they were established.

Perhaps the question should be: what would the market look like if there were multiple providers, each of which had equal access to license content they felt best fit their customer base?

[bthazos]

This is where government could perform a useful function. Content creators selling to the government and the government reselling full access of all that content to distributors is a realtopian dream of mine. It seems win-win all around to me. Consumers could go with the provider that has their favorite interface/content/price, creators would have a choice to sell to the govt and receive full draconian protection or sell on the open market and forgo legal protection of their works, and govt could feel good about running such a snappy program that serves all its citizens.

[salawat]

This isn't a case of we need providers to license. The issue is providers thimking of all money not collected as left on the table, leading to the jacking up of prices, for ever diminishing quality of product.