Winter And The Wall
In response to my PandoDaily post about Game of Thrones earlier, Trevor Gilbert tries his hand at parody. Not all bad, but a few quick problems:
1) You can buy an unlocked iPhone.
2) Even if you stole the iPhone, you wouldn’t actually be able to use it on a carrier’s network without paying them.
3) Pretty much everything else.
But Gilbert knows this, I have to assume. From the comments, it seems he takes issue with my “sense of entitlement”. Clearly lost on him (and plenty others!) is the point.
The point is the very essence of piracy.
My objection here isn’t on the point of ease of piracy or the preferred nature of the customer. It’s the crux of the argument you make, with phrases like “HBO doesn’t care,” “they’re fools if,” (because the if is simply not true), “doing so blindly,” “pretending,” “scared shitless.”
A cursory investigation into HBO’s economics and point of view reveal all these to be untrue. They know what’s happening, they are ready for it, and they have a deep, deep insight into how much piracy is costing them, and presumably fairly accurate financial projections of what a radical change in their business plan would entail.
The stats don’t bear it out either. There are literally more than a hundred million cable subscribers without HBO than there are cable-cutters with broadband and no cable who want HBO. It makes no sense to pursue a market 3% as big, defined by a desire for cost savings over the larger market of people who clearly are willing to pay more.
If you were up for it, I’d take a bet on this. You quote .5 years. I’d take a bet that in one year, HBO is still profitable, without a substantial drop in subscribers (say less than 3%), and the number of cable cutters hasn’t even doubled from 3 million to 6 million. I’d put five grand on it. WIthout hesitating.
