[saint_fiasco]

why do you assume you have the right to be served entertainment through the channel of your choice? You wouldn't call up your local pizzeria and demand they deliver a Big Mac and fries, would you?

Because the marginal cost of a Big Mac and fries is huge compared to the marginal cost of one more person watching Game of Thrones.

Not saying that's a good reason, but that's probably the reason for that assumption. People often fail to consider fixed costs when deciding how high should a "fair" price be.

[anigbrowl]

I think a more appropriate comparison would the marginal cost of adding another distribution channel, which was the basis of my analogy. I'm not talking about getting a Big Mac for free, but about the unfounded expectation of having one delivered to you.

[betterunix]

It's more like asking your neighbor to fetch two burgers, and then give you one of them. Except that your neighbor has a burger-multiplying-machine that can keep giving you burgers once your neighbor gets their first one.

There is no reason we should sit around worrying about HBO. HBO pays people lots of money to figure out how to monetize their entertainment. Let them figure out how to monetize BitTorrent and similar P2P systems. If they choose instead to ignore those technologies, well, they can suffer the consequences when someone else figures it out. The rest of us should not have to worry -- we do not worry when we turn on the radio or use a VCR, so why should we be so concerned here?