death of the net predicted by deloitte -- film at 11

Mon Feb 12 01:40:08 UTC 2007

Thus spake "Geo." <geoincidents at nls.net>
> TIVO type setup with a massive archive of every show so you can not
> only watch this weeks episode but you can tivo download any show
> from the last 6 years worth of your favorite series is one heck of a
> draw over cable or satellite and might be enough to motivate the
> public
> to move to a different service. A better tivo than tivo.

As I've pointed out before, the pirates _are already doing this_, and it
works.  Unfortunately, it remains to be seen if the Net will survive
1000x as many users.  P2P have interesting scaling characteristics;
1000x as many users doesn't mean 1000x as many bit-miles.  In fact,
higher densities may reduce the bit-miles -- and network operators pay
for bit-miles, not bits.

> As for making money, just stick a commercial on the front of every
> download.

BitTorrent, Inc. is working deals to distribute DRMed files freely over
P2P and individual users would just purchase a license to view the files
after the download is complete.  (Of course, I assume this'll be cracked
relatively soon, but like with iTMS, most people will pay anyways)

The alternative is free viewing with more product placement, inline ads
at the top/bottom of the screen, or a little header with "this program
is brought to you commercial-free by <sponsor>", like I've seen on
soccer (football to non-US folks) games.  Commercials in their present
form are dying fast with the advent of DVRs, and on-demand shows will
destroy them -- though that won't stop some dinosaurs from trying it.

S

Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 2793 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/attachments/20070211/905300d3/attachment.bin>