[dagw]

They would make more than they make now, that's for sure. Because right now, there is no way for me to pay them.

But there are lots of other people that are paying them. If getting you to pay more means that all those people start paying less, then they might very well lose. Also it's worth remembering that the guy in the sofa in front of his TV is not the only HBO customer. They make money selling their shows to other TV channels as well.

[fuligo]

> worth remembering that the guy in the sofa in front of his TV is not the only HBO customer

It's funny how those pass for prohibitive reasons why something can't happen until suddenly these reasons go away. This is exactly what happened to music downloading. There were international sales, fears of organizations competing with their own sales partners, and oh dear all those unsolvable problems that come with offering content free of DRM. Oh the horror. And then, all of that went away.

Arguing in favor of the status quo is always a safe position, because obviously you have current management on your side. That doesn't mean consumers don't have a nasty habit of breaking out of their straight jackets. There are good reasons why torrenting TV shows is so popular, and it only partially has to do with the price tag. I would argue that for most downloaders, the primary reason is actually quality and freedom from hassle.

Things are reasonably impossible until they aren't.

[PakG1]

All that went away, but record label executives endured some short-term pain of analog dollars becoming digital pennies. They had to start signing artists to 360 deals that gave them a cut of more than just album sales. The movie and TV industries looked at the music industry and said, "We need to be careful that doesn't happen to us." Because for movies and TV, there are no live performances and so on that can make 360 deals lucrative. It's a game theory question as to what's the best thing to do. Will your utopia truly arise in the future or will it not? And Netflix is possibly the only company willing to make a real move and find out. The rest are frozen with fear that analog dollars will become digital pennies.

[dagw]

I'm not arguing in favor of the status quo, I am in fact very much against it. I'm simply realistic enough that I don't think that HBO simply selling their shows to the world as downloads from their website will magically lead to them making more money.

As to the music industry it responded to a serious decline in sales and for all their attempts at going digital their growth is at best pretty flat and they are still far off their pre-crash peak. So streaming and DRM-free downloads at best helped the music industry slow their decline, it certainly didn't lead to them making more money.

[fuligo]

As you can see, there is a lot of hate towards my comments above, and most people here seem to think my thoughts are a net detriment to the discussion so I will stop posting.

I'd just like to say in closing that I want to pay money for a product I'm not getting right now. The main argument against this seems to be that by allowing me to pay for it, this product would suffer. I will bow to the majority opinion and get out of here.

[dagw]

The main argument against this seems to be that by allowing me to pay for it, this product would suffer.

No. The main argument against is that by setting up the infrastructure needed to let you pay for the product you want in the way that you want will probably lead to the company making less money. No one is saying that it wouldn't be nice if it worked the way you want it to work (I want it to work the way you want it to work), just that it's financially unrealistic.