Winners and Losers

Randians make a great big whiny ass hypocritical deal about “not having the government pick winners and losers in the marketplace.”

Well, that’s what Net Neutrality is about.

Pay-TV Providers Face ‘Toxic Mix’ as Subscribers Cancel in Record Numbers

By Alex Sherman, Bloomberg News

Aug 10, 2011 12:01 AM ET

The six largest publicly traded U.S. cable and satellite-TV providers combined to lose about 580,000 customers in the second quarter, the biggest such decline in history, according to company and Bloomberg data.

The economy is forcing the industry to face the reality of cord-cutting — pay-TV customers canceling their subscriptions in favor of online options such as Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hulu LLC. While cable executives dismiss the idea that subscribers are switching to “over the top” Internet competitors, the reason isn’t as important as the decision to stop paying for TV, said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York.

“Rising prices for pay TV, coupled with growing availability of lower-cost alternatives, add to a toxic mix at a time when disposable income isn’t growing,” Moffett said. “For younger demographics, where in many cohorts unemployment is north of 30 percent, and especially for those with limited or no interest in sports, the pay-TV equation is almost inarguably getting less attractive.”

As a matter of fact, I’m working for clients just like this.  What you need is a computer, an internet connection, and (depending on your TV) an adapter.  Look at the video inputs on the back of your TV to decide what type of VGA to ??? you need.  Laptops are particularly good platforms since they almost always include an auxiliary VGA port for an external monitor.  Good sources for the adapters are NewEgg and Tiger Direct.

Oh, the Net Neutrality aspect.  Well, without it ISP companies are free to discriminate against users who choose to get their TV online based on ‘Bandwidth’, thus subsidizing the Cable TV industry in which many of them have a conflicted interest.

Randian hypocrisy?  Companies should be free to discriminate against black people because you can always patronize lunch counters that don’t have “We Don’t Serve Negros” signs on the door.

(h/t Atrios)

1 comment

    • on 08/10/2011 at 16:28
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