HBO Says No, for Now, to Fans Who Want a Web-Only Option | Hacker News Reader

HBO Says No, for Now, to Fans Who Want a Web-Only Option

mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

This is why Game of Thrones is the one of the most pirated TV shows of all time: http://torrentfreak.com/whos-pirating-game-of-thrones-and-wh...

People are willing to pay, and they're not responding to customer demand.

People that are pirating the show aren't willing to pay. If they were then they'd be subscribed to HBO.

Maybe they don't have TVs/cable?

I don't have cable/satellite. The minimum monthly cost to obtain HBO for me is about $45/month for basic cable, HBO, and a DVR option.

My GF is completely addicted to Game of Thrones, but she openly admits she will not pay $540/year for basically a single season of a show.

All the "but look at all the other content you get" arguments are null, if I were interested in any of that other content, I'd already be paying for it. But we're not.

She can torrent it now and watch it when she likes for free. While she will undoubtedly go buy the DVDs when they're released (she always does), the incentive to watch it "now" as it's being broadcast is worth some amount of money $0<n<$540 for her.

I really don't buy the argument that HBOGo wouldn't make any money if they charged $15/mo for streaming-only access. Nearly everyone I know (none of whom have cable/satellite and HBO now) would gladly pay that price or even marginally higher.

If they have cable, and they're pirating - you would be correct. It would however be incorrect to assume that someone who doesn't want to pay 80 dollars a month before being allowed to pay for HBO would pirate it if given the chance to just pay for HBO directly.

Some folks are willing to pay for exactly what they want, but they're not willing to pay an additional amount to get content they don't care about.

Same thing that happened with the music industry: people don't want all the filler bullshit on some albums, they just want the hot single. Let folks buy a single MP3 and they will, or they'll pirate if you only provide the entire album for sale.

Some folks are willing to pay for exactly what they want, but they're not willing to pay an additional amount to get content they don't care about.

You have the option of buying the DVDs or through iTunes. Using your analogy, they can buy the entire album or a single track. If a band played some new songs at a concert, you'd have to wait until they made it on an album...unless someone records them and releases them for free.

Andy Ihnatko nails it: http://ihnatko.com/2012/02/20/heavy-hangs-the-bandwidth-that...

From Andy Ihnatko's blog:

But — umm — the release date is only, like, two or three weeks away.

Two or three weeks away would fine. Two or three months would be okay too. GoT season 1 finished airing in June 2011, and didn't come until out on DVD until March 2012.

I think the idea was that those people are willing to pay directly for the show, as opposed to paying for a subscription.

There was a discussion about this a couple days ago which included a video of the CEO discussing why economically it just doesn't make sense for them to offer HBO as a standalone product: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4071963

He didn't really do that. He explained why it didn't make sense for HBO to totally abandon partnering with anyone else and go it completely alone. But there are many less radical options that would satisfy most of the people complaining. For example, he did not explain why HBO couldn't do one of the following:

• Release shows in a timely manner on iTunes

• Keep their current distribution outlets and just allow people to pay for HBO Go (OK, he mentioned billing, but I'd be happy to write a Stripe payment page for HBO gratis if that's really the holdup)

• Add Netflix or Amazon to their list of partners

The actual reason why HBO can't do any of this seems to be that Time-Warner owns HBO, and Time-Warner doesn't want that to happen, so it's not even an option for HBO. Realistically, I'd bet good money that HBO could be more responsive to Internet customers' wishes and it wouldn't hurt their business at all (what, is Cox going to stop carrying HBO because they released a Game of Thrones episode on the Web the same month it aired?), but they aren't free to make that call.

"Time-Warner"NYSE: TWX and "Time Warner Cable" NYSE: TWC aren't the same company. While TW may not want something, your implication is because it would effect the cable business, which is not at all related to TW, only TWC, a completely separate company.

Shoot, I forgot that they had divorced their parent company. Call me stumped then, because the first half of my comment still applies: The rationale given by HBO doesn't make any sense.

People are willing to pay, and they're not responding to customer demand.

How many of these people don't have cable or satellite? Really now if you already have cable (and I know very few that don't) then you already have the ability to pay, and get HBOGo

I do not have cable or satellite. When I want to see something, I check Amazon, Hulu, or similar places. If I can't find anyone willing to take my money in exchange for a stream, I then consider alternatives that do not involve making contracts with cable/dish companies.

Its crazy if you think about it: there are dozens of teams working for free (probably pulling all nighters) to translate subtitles to brazilian portuguese so the other folks that don't speak english can see the shows only a couple days later that they appear in US.

They are truly fans of the series, but they're all pirating this content. But its hard for me to just say that they're motherfucking thieves.

If they could just sit back and pay x<=5 bucks to see this show with comfort - would they? I would.

I think a significant amount. My sample is biased, I know a bunch of very active people in SF, but I'm not sure anyone I interact with weekly has cable or satellite.

I have cable internet, but I don't have cable or a TV for that matter.

It is 2012, my computer monitor is larger than the TV I had as a kid (both in size and, of course, pixels).

The shows I can watch legally I do.

Sooner or later, if Netflix achieves some combination of quality/price/offering around the world people will abandon conventional cable very quickly (or whatever we call cable: I mean something that 95% of the time is airing stuff I don't care about).

I'll be honest: I have cable right now because I live with my parents and they probably wouldn't understand how Netflix works. Also Netflix is in the first days in Brazil. But living by myself it would be an obvious superfluous expense to cut.

raises hand

I have internet through Verizon's FIOS, and I don't do any of their tv deals. I use streaming Netflix as my stand-by, and I purchase movies and shows à la carte from the PlayStation Network or Amazon's streaming service through my PS3. Everything I watch is legit.

A lot of people <35 don't have cable.

Looking at my local cable plans, watching Game of Thrones on TV would cost me something like $1200/year, because I'd need to subscribe to digital cable with a mess of extras. And our TV is the worst screen in the house (even my phone has higher resolution). Tell me again why I would do this?

Personally, I'm going to wait until GoT comes out on DVD, and borrow the first episodes from someone. If I really want to watch the series, I'll buy the box set. But lots of people aren't so patient, and I've heard that piracy is free…

The tight relationship between HBO and the cable companies will remain insanely profitable for years to come. But eventually there will be too many customers like me, and that's going to be a hard day for HBO.

Ok. That's fine. But I now fully consider piracy for HBO to be a business decision and I don't want to hear any moral condemnation and cries for government intervention from them.

HBO isn't some critical drug that you need to live, it's an entertainment channel. You don't have a need for HBO that gives you a moral right to make an unauthorized copy of it.

If you want to make a copy of it, fine, but don't try and pretend it's anything other than lack of self-control on your part by trying to gloss with a "moral high ground".

Sure, agreed. But it is reasonable to assume from this that HBO considers whatever losses it is suffering from piracy to be acceptable in some sense, or at least preferable to selling their shows online, which is interesting in its own right.

I'm not talking about self justification here, i'm talking about business and politics. Lately the entertainment industry has been campaigning for government intervention to clamp down on the internet because content producers can't make enough money because of piracy. To me, this argument clearly states that they believe they make more money from a premium price with a restricted supply that encourages piracy than they would from an easily available product that would reduce piracy. I am perfectly fine with them making this business decision. However, as a citizen who would like to have as little government intervention as possible while still protecting functioning markets, I see no problem here and don't want to hear about how they need government intervention to prevent content creators like them from going out of business.

To me, this argument clearly states that they believe they make more money from a premium price with a restricted supply that encourages piracy than they would from an easily available product that would reduce piracy.

Do you also steal diamonds? Gas? McRibs? After all, those are also products who's supply is artificially constrained. I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but however you try and justify theft, it's still theft. The market is functioning, you just don't like how it works right now.

Hrm, Very interesting response.

Software and media are both zero marginal cost products, so when someone pirates it, I don't consider it theft. Left to run rampant, piracy could create a situation where it wasn't viable to run that business anymore, which I would care about. However, the claim has long been countered by people saying that the business themselves are in a better position to deal with this problem without additional government involvement. I believe this article and the other from dcurtis clearly shows that the later is true for HBO.

Yes, the market is functioning, and I like it just fine. Piracy is creating a ceiling on how much a company can charge for their product while still making it widely available for enjoyment of people. Piracy in this case is serving as price discrimination allowing the most possible number of people to enjoy it while those who are able to afford it or care enough are paying for it. It appears as though the current market is doing a rather nice job of maximizing social benefit.

Would I steal gas or McRibs, no, those are both a clearly limited item. Now diamonds are a fun one I have never thought of. Rumor has it that there are warehouses full of diamonds they DeBeers keeps of the market to drive up the price of diamonds as a jewelry item. Hypothetically, lets say I had designed a new industrial laser than would help make the lives of other human beings better off, but I need a giant diamond that at current artificially restricted price doesn't make economic sense. In this case, yes, I think I would steal a diamond and not feel bad about it. But then again, although I am not a purist, many of my ideas about morality are utilitarian. Especially with zero marginal cost goods.

I agree completely, but it's important to remember the other side as well: in the United States, control over your intellectual property is not considered a moral right either.

While there is no justification to be found in that distinction for pirating the show, it makes it much less clear that you have a moral imperative to maintain "self-control" and not pirate it.

This doesn't make sense. They would be fully entitled to protect their IP even if they chose to distribute it exclusively from a single retail store in Topeka, Kansas.

Yes, and when they go out of business and post their sad little page about how content producers can't make money in this age of piracy, are you going to believe them and support the next internet clampdown legislation, or are you going to remember that their business model was dumb and they deserve to go out of business(not the HBO is making the wrong choice, it is probably the correct choice for them).

That is a straw man argument. Throwing up a smokescreen of "big government Internet clampdown" is not a justification for theft.

Whether or not you agree with their business model is irrelevant. They have a right to protect their content, full stop.

Repeat after me: PIRACY IS NOT THEFT.

Thats the beauty if a free market economy. They want to charge X to access their service, and you think it is worth Y. Since you don't agree you are free to not purchase it. Hence why piracy is illegal since it subverts this system.

Offering a complete streaming service might be a bad idea, but it's a shame they don't do like so many other content providers and offer individual episodes for sale via Amazon Instant Video. Many popular cable shows (and even shows from ABC/NBC/Fox etc.) are available for purchase on Amazon the day after they air, usually for $2 each. This option would avoid the technical difficulties and the added expense of operating their own web-based content delivery system.

I think this makes complete sense for HBO, although as a consumer its pretty irritating. I'm hunting for the reference but I seem to remember reading about (UK) Sky signup accelerating after the launch of Sky Atlantic, which shows HBO content pretty much exclusively, their content brings people to providers. Until the cord cutters outnumber the cable subscribers its not going to change I'm afraid. Also the providers also have their own IPTV solutions so whats the benefit to HBO?

Which would be tantamount to open warfare in the minds of the cable companies. (Incumbents like to over react when revenue they feel entitlement over is at stake.)

This is about HBO determining that it's better for their business to stay with the cable companies. The argument is laid out pretty well here:

http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism

It's better for their business now. In fact, I think it's true that they will get less money as online-only than in the current scheme. But that's not important, because I think the current business model is going to go away. That is, I think they'll eventually have to have an online-only option, or they'll die.

Their decision makes perfect sense, today. But, my guess is that cable subscriptions are decreasing, they have just hooked their little red wagon to a sinking ship. I think HBO are overlooking an opportunity.

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