Think the Internet Will Replace Cable ? Read this first | Hacker News Reader

Think the Internet Will Replace Cable ? Read this first

blogmaverick.com

9 pointsjsm38613 comments

i'll write a post about this that's more in depth, but the fact of the matter is: content is no longer linear when it comes to the internet. If 2 million people are going to watch heroes it certainly won't be at the same time. it will be at their leisure, so the whole technical capabilities argument doesn't hold up.

the stuff that is livestreamed is a different breed of content. think more along the lines of interactive sessions on ustream and jtv. they haven't hit a 2mil simultaneous stream. the engagement for each person is much higher on those sites anyway.

Cuban's fixation on live video may have something to do with his interest in sports, which people like to watch live. We might also notice his other conflict of interest from HDNet, a traditional linear cable channel.

Even if everyone doesn't watch Heroes at the same time, you can bet there's a peak time of day where millions of people are watching something. It may actually cost more to deliver 1M different streams to 1M people than to deliver one live stream. Or it may cost less if you can prefetch and buffer it like crazy.

The question of why YouTube doesn't use the latest technology is an interesting one. Is it more expensive? Does it "not scale"? Do they just not care since it's free anyway?

Way to be contrary to the maverick, @jason. ;) I totally agree with you, though; people will totally craft their own viewing experience. I was catching up on a Simpsons episode recently and when the 30 sec ad started, without even thinking, I clicked to another tab and did something else for the duration, and clicked back when I heard cartoon voices. Then it hit me that hulu probably had a point with their charge-for-content threat. It's not so easy to leave the room for commercials, but it's all too easy to click to another tab.

doing same thing on my tv all the time. i simply change channel while keeping ad in a small window in the corner. love that feature. panasonic, ideas for life.)) i think its just a question of time when all tvs will have this feature

I have multiple monitors, one dedicated to music/video so I never really "leave" the page. My biggest complaint is the lack of variety.

All it will take stream massively-watched video at orders of magnitude less cost than either airwave or cable broadcast is TCP multicast. Granted there are some barriers there, but it's fundamentally more efficient than any other broadcast method. It just hasn't been worth it yet because for those few events we've already had long-existing broadcast TV networks.

Hell, you could even do it purely at the application level with BitTorrent.

Cable is cheaper now because of sunk costs, but cable companies are much too fat to innovate at this point. They will do whatever they can to keep prices high and cling to their cash cow, while Internet bandwidth inevitably becomes cheaper fueled by thousands of disparate interests. Cartels may drag out the endgame, but eventually content producers will have no choice but to go where the eyeballs are.

U-Verse is based on multicast, but ISPs still don't allow it over the Internet and I doubt they ever will due to the routing table bloat.

Cable is cheaper now because of sunk costs, but cable companies are much too fat to innovate at this point.

I disagree in one respect: cable companies are still highly innovative when it comes to lowering their internal costs. It's not something a customer would notice (well, not if done right) but the technology curve helps them deliver more data bits over the same wire for the same cost, or the same data bits for lower costs.

Not that you'll ever see a dime of it, but some very sharp people are squeezing every drop out of their cash cows.

He didn't really throw down any hard $$$ numbers in terms of costs. And didn't take into account the worlds demand for more bandwidth in general. As servers become more powerful and cheaper, and fiber becomes more plentiful what he said makes sense today, but will it tomorrow?

Someone is still going to control all that infrastructure no matter how cheap it gets. The content will be controlled by the users more than it is now (premium content/celebrities will still draw the most eyeballs), but the backends will still be in the hands of a few companies, and in this sense everyone is still at their mercy.

counter points: 1. most content isn't live-streamed. 2. content that is live-streamed fits very well to p2p , which is very cheap , and might even become embedded in flash. 3. the buffering issue holds some of the characteristics of disruptive technology:worse in viewing quality , but better in other dimensions - viewing options /price / experience. and as any disruptive tech , it's always improving. 4. regarding 3 internet video service providers : given a lot less customer lockup then cable companies , the competition between those 3 are better . 5, Alot depends on which advertising model(web vs cable) , will be able to offer better results.

" He asks the simple question of “how is it the Youtube , with all of google’s resources,. cant solve their buffering problem ? ” ....Now maybe Youtube will fix their buffering problem someday, along with the other issues that Dan addresses, but it wont be easy and it wont be quick."

Begging the question. There's no evidence of widespread YouTube 'buffering problems' in the article or the link.

Suggesting renting a time slot from cable/satellite providers as a solution ignores the shift in watching habits from being pushed content to pulling it.

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