People aren't bitching about "how hard it is to get Game of Thrones", people are bitching because they'd love to pay for it, legitimately, but without subsidizing all the bundled crap .
I have zero interest in ESPN, Disney and "reality" television. I understand fully why HBO is making more money than ever out of the bundlers' desperation, and don't complain that they're "losing" money (which isn't the case) but I would certainly prefer to be given the option to buy the content alone.
"In the meantime, people should stop bitching about how hard it is to get Game of Thrones; they sound ridiculous. Why on earth should anyone care how hard it is to see a swords-and-sorcery soap opera?"
The exact content is as irrelevant as your dislike of it. Dislike for Cable television providers didn't originate with GoT.
In other words, people are bitching because they'd love to pay what they think GoT is worth, and not what GoT is demonstrably actually worth to HBO.
Pay TV will eventually lose in the market as people (again, like Netflix) figure out how to have compelling content created for the direct online audience. But it won't lose until that happens.
Incidentally: I'm not the one who keeps bringing up Game Of Thrones.
> I'm not the one who keeps bringing up Game Of Thrones
People aren't necessarily bringing it up because of the content. More because the logistics of how it's distributed have been talked about before. By bringing up Game of Thrones, the point is to discuss the issues around it, not start a thread on the merits of the content itself.
but without subsidizing all the bundled crap. I have zero interest in ESPN, Disney and "reality" television.
You think that you are subsidizing all those shows, when you only want your shows.
But to another household, your shows are the noise that they are subsidizing to be able to watch their shows.
To a first approximation, if everyone could order exactly the channels they wanted, they would all be paying the exact same, just with fewer channels to flip through, and with more expensive bookkeeping.
This assumes uniform consumption. I suspect (based on watching people's viewing habits) that most people watch a lot more channels than I do, but I have to buy the same package as they do just to get the particular set of channels I want, so I'm not sure this is true. This is what people are getting at: I only watch three channels, but I have to pay for about 400 to get them. Meanwhile, my friends also pay for 400 channels and watch 40 of them. If everyone could order exactly the channels they wanted, it seems unlikely that I would be paying the same price they are.
If you really restrict yourself to only a few, you might be better off. But you would be the rare bird. And if people really had to pay $4 for the History Channel for just 30 minutes of Storage Wars a month(is that the right channel?), they would probably skip it.
There is also the loss of option value. (I can flip to MTV if my friends call me up and tell me there's something I need to watch, even though I really did program both my TV and DVR to remove MTV from its listings.)
Also, you are drawing the line at the "channel" boundary, but even a channel is bundling a whole bunch of shows. Someone who watches 1 hour on three channels each is consuming the same amount of TV as someone who watches 3 hours on 1 channel. Cable companies could do per-unit billing, but customers hate that. The vast majority of customers prefer to pay the all-you-can-eat price so they don't have to worry about cost if they leave the TV on or just want to flip down the dial.
Netflix is the ultimate bundling. There are thousands of things there that I have absolutely no intention of watching ever, but that doesn't mean the "fair" price is the 1/1000th of my monthly fee.
"And if people really had to pay $4 for the History Channel for just 30 minutes of Storage Wars a month(is that the right channel?), they would probably skip it.
There is also the loss of option value. (I can flip to MTV if my friends call me up and tell me there's something I need to watch, even though I really did program both my TV and DVR to remove MTV from its listings.)"
These are your opinions, though, not a persuasive argument for a person who will never regret not having the option to pay for television they will never watch.
"You think that you are subsidizing all those shows, when you only want your shows.
But to another household, your shows are the noise that they are subsidizing to be able to watch their shows."
Good. If they want 500 channels of terrible programming, they can pay more for every one of them.
"In other words, people are bitching because they'd love to pay what they think GoT is worth, and not what GoT is demonstrably actually worth to HBO."
They are bitching because they would like to be given the option to pay for HBO by whatever metric HBO uses to quantify the cost of its content (including subsidization), whatever that may be.
I have zero interest in ESPN, Disney and "reality" television. I understand fully why HBO is making more money than ever out of the bundlers' desperation, and don't complain that they're "losing" money (which isn't the case) but I would certainly prefer to be given the option to buy the content alone.
"In the meantime, people should stop bitching about how hard it is to get Game of Thrones; they sound ridiculous. Why on earth should anyone care how hard it is to see a swords-and-sorcery soap opera?"
The exact content is as irrelevant as your dislike of it. Dislike for Cable television providers didn't originate with GoT.