Time Warner and Comcast Ink Deal to Make You Pay for Online TV

Rant: Cable companies have an outdated model of making money. They think that by charging people to watch their favorite channels, they can slowly milk the retirement and life savings away from their customers and make a profit because those people need their favorite shows. Now, these big cable companies and networks, afraid to lose that business model to the free content proliferating the internet, are banding together to put a stop to free content. Time Warner and Comcast announced that they have partnered up with a new business model called TV Everywhere. But don't let the name mislead you. It's TV Everywhere only if you're willing to pay a pretty hefty price for it.



Needless to say we're not happy with this development. Not because we hate the price gauging cable companies and believe in a free world where we don't have to pay for TV. Well, not entirely because of that. But it's because we get upset when companies refuse to understand where the internet is going and stubbornly stick to outdated and archaic ways of trying to make money while really only hurting themselves and pouring money into a system that was doomed from the beginning. Yeah, we're looking at you too music industry.

We're not certain where these cable companies get the idea that this could possibly work. Maybe they saw the unparalleled success newspapers and magazines had using this model ten years ago ... ahem. A word to the cable companies: don't fight the free content model, take a page out of Hulu's book and find a new way to make a profit by going with a system that works. Hulu has even become more valuable for advertisers than actual TV recently, showing where the market is going. Rather than being overwhelmed by free video sites like YouTube, Hulu took what YouTube did best and added short advertisements to make a really successful business model that will only grow in the near future. And let's reiterate: It's working really well.

Plus, it's not like this is going to increase subscribers. Essentially the partnership will create a way for already paying cable customers can access content online via an authentication system. In July they'll start a trial with about 5,000 subscribers to see if this is a model that can work. It won't. If someone doesn't want to pay for cable TV, they're not going to pay for it just so they can get it online.

I'm not against bringing more content to the internet. There are a few shows I would love to see online and the idealist in me likes to think the cable companies and networks have somewhat good intentions. But they're going to kill themselves ... I won't mind that too much, it just means I'll have to wait a couple more years to catch those shows online and free. I can wait.

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