Correct me if Im wrong but I think "take it or leave it" attitude with internet and TV broadcast is due to the fact those services aren't considered as "essential service" and therefore they are not as tightly regulated as gas, electricity and water.
There used to be many hundreds or thousands of telephone companies in the early 20th century. That is until ATT figured out how to regulate out the competition;
With competition there would be no "take it or leave it", or you wouldn't last long as a company with an attitude like that.
From Wikipedia on ATT history;
As a result of a combination of regulatory actions by government and actions by AT&T, the firm eventually gained what most regard as monopoly status. In 1907, AT&T president Theodore Vail made it known that he was pursuing a goal of "One Policy, One System, Universal Service." AT&T began purchasing competitors, which attracted the attention of antitrust regulators. To avoid antitrust action, in a deal with the government, Vail agreed to the Kingsbury Commitment of 1913.
ATT argued that in order to make the Americans safe in this new technology that there needed to be one standard.. and they were the ones to do it, by God. The Government agreed and in fact it were complicit in regulating to ATT's wishes.. competitors had no choice but to sell out to them. The eventual deregulation is another story.. But without deregulation, no UIA.
If the regulation bar is set high enough then other smaller companies no matter how innovative cannot even get started, ideas are killed off before anyone even dares to challenge.
Lots of people blame the cable company and certainly they are no more believers in free enterprise then any other wannabe monopoly.. but they are hampered by incredibly bad deals that the content providers have heaped upon them.. Both of them really thought the gravy trail would just go on and on.. did you know for example that the cable company pays ESPN for every single sub they have.. I have heard from some that it is around $15.00 per month, no matter if the subscriber gets the service or not. This is why there is such a drive towards bundling by the cable companies.. It is Hollywood and the other content providers that are really killing it with the current business model - but now there is a problem in that the incremental price increases have started to be noticed.. people are cutting the cord. Millennials could care less about TV for example, it's just entirely to expensive for them for what it is.. Along comes NetFlix and now they are even making their own content!
People are cutting the cord at such a decent clip to that the cable companies are seeing that down the road they might get cut out.. so they are trying to compete, (SlingTV, HULU, Netflix, Amazon), competition is good.
Make no mistake competition works.. it's working for Wrightwood and in a couple years no one will even remember the bad old days of DSL.
ESPN and the others like them are the last holdouts and they are starting to see less revenue -- they will have to change their business model.. perhaps not sign crazy deals with sports teams.. and down hill it goes.. maybe sports stars will start to see less revenue being offered..
All natural consequences of a disruptive technology.. all good stuff.
The only danger to this I see is trying take the momentum out of what can be seen as a movement by many many companies like UIA, by regulating it. They have started but lets see how far they get.
The FCC has taken control of the Internet.. So far they favor competition.. but it
was unregulated completely - meaning that no politician could really bribe anyone since there was no mechanism for control. But
now there is..
Regards,
--Wes
