"The future of TV is TV," he says. "That is what consumers want." Arguing that forecasters need only follow the money, he notes that consumers have made their choice to spend money on new HDTVs because they want a no-hassle way to watch TV, and do not want all the hassles associated with PC-based or Internet-delivered video.
"I don’t understand why so many people think that having millions of videos available online to watch any time is some big deal," Cuban says. "Consumer choice is about having the brand new device on which you just spent hundreds of dollars or more work immediately and just as you expected.
"When you buy a car, you don’t want to have to figure out how to make it work. You don’t want to have to bring someone in to make sure the engine starts, or have to buy some 3rd party device so that you can go full speed or blast the stereo. When you buy that car, you want to jump in the driver's seat, smell that new car smell, be excited when you turn it on, and crank that stereo and roll down the road in your brand new car. You made your choice as a consumer. You spent your money. You want immediate gratification.
1 comment:
Is Cuban not throwing out the baby with the bath water? Naturally video delivery should be hassle-free, but to suggest that the future of TV is TV is to apparently gloss-over the fact that there is a revolution underway in the delivery technology (IP delivery) and the paradigm shifts it enables.
With all due respect, consumer choice is about watching what you want, when you want, where you want without being charged monopolistic rates.
Remember how Apple used IP delivery to enable the purchase of ONE song instead of an entire album? It's not much of a stretch to imagine that IP content delivery will eventually enable me a hassle-free way to buy ONLY the cable networks (or programs) that I ever watch instead of having them 'bundled' into 'packages' for higher premiums.
The OTHER future of TV is mobile, and an IP delivery paradigm creates a powerful and automatic abstraction layer between the logical (subscriber) and the physical delivery method (cable). Not only does this conveniently enable video-on-demand and timeshifting. Both of which are killer apps in their own right, but also placeshifting (or device shifting). If I already pay for my video content. Why should it require the purchase of a SLINGBOX to enable me to watch it elsewhere or on a different device?
So I agree that the future of video has to be hassle free, and I agree that people tend to like TV-shaped appliances, but otherwise I would disagree and say that from this perspective the video paradigms going forward will likely be changing AT LEAST as much as they will be staying the same. Just an opinion.
-Karl Fife
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