[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.