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Comment by ryanstewart | Hacker News Reader

"That's a nice noble reframing of humanities innate desire to have access to Game of Thrones season 2 without paying for cable."

But doesn't that speak to the exact issue you're responding to? I'd more than happily pay for Game of Thrones season 2 if it were available for me to pay for on its own or with other things I want. The problem is that in order to get it I have to subscribe to cable, which is a hefty tax to pay for a single show.

I'm not begrudging HBO for deciding that's the best way for them to make money. But I gladly reward artists and companies that are thinking outside the box and doing direct-to-consumer or generally breaking away from the middle man.

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"But doesn't that speak to the exact issue you're responding to? I'd more than happily pay for Game of Thrones season 2 if it were available for me to pay for on its own or with other things I want. The problem is that in order to get it I have to subscribe to cable, which is a hefty tax to pay for a single show."

The only feature I wanted in my washing machine was regular wash cotton. I should've stolen it I suppose.

That would deprive someone of their washing machine.

Oh no, your shitty analogy has fallen apart~

No. You could probably find a washing machine that has specifically what you are looking for.

That analogy is misleading and you know it. It's more like being unable to buy a washing machine without also buying a dryer, snow blower, quad garage door opener, freezer, golf cart, and thresher attachment. Oh and you can't resell the extra stuff. Oh and you can't loan it out either. You're practically burning money.

Come back when someone invents a washing machine that does only cotton and costs 95% less than a normal washing machine, then patents it and won't let anyone build them. Maybe then you'll see the problem.

"Maybe then you'll see the problem."

"The problem" is that you can't see Game of Thrones. Really? REALLY?? Oh the humanity!

I don't know how people ever did anything before Game of Thrones. It would be absolute chaos if people couldn't steal it.... how else would they survive?

Stop getting all indignant. A forced bundle with products made by other companies that boosts the price twenty-fold is a market failure. It doesn't matter if it's petty entertainment.

Oh. You don't like their business model, so you should steal your 'petty entertainment?'

It does matter if it's petty entertainment. I might agree with you if you were having trouble eating over this. But you can't watch Game of Thrones without buying HBO and so you have to steal Game of Thrones? You don't have to steal anything. You can simply not watch their show if you don't agree with their business model.

People don't agree with chick-fil-a giving money to homophobic groups, and they don't eat at chick-fil-a. They don't go out and steal chicken sandwiches because they want them that badly. You have that option as well.

I think you missed the part where these people want to buy HBO. In fact if the first sale doctrine applied to broadcasts then the problem would solve itself, with people selling off their HBO copies at a fair and unbundled price.

The problem with citing Louis CK or Radiohead when discussing this issue is that they are outliers. They are individual artists, working in mediums with little to no overhead who have established reputations.

But film, tv, games, software - some of these projects take thousands of people working full time for years, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.

It's true that some types of film, tv, games, and software made with huge budgets and teams. However, all of these things are still produced by individuals and small groups of people, even without the change of major financial success. The rise of things like kickstarter, bandcamp, youtube, etc. are all evidence of people looking to and actually creating something.

Indeed, but the public's appetite for alternative and crowd funded entertainment is relatively insignificant, as evidenced by a glance at your average torrent tracker. That's why it's described as alternative.

The public want slick, expensively produced mass market entertainment. They just don't want to pay for it if they can avoid it.

Very true, also people like Radiohead and Louis CK probably have particular audiences that are more likely to get behind new ideas of distributing content because they care deeply about the content and the artist themselves.

Any producer has the right to determine the terms by which the purchase will be made. What you're saying is that if you don't give me what I want in the way I want, then I will get it for free. Well, you have another option: just don't buy it.

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