Sorry, I wasn't precise. I meant there's no good technological reason. It sucks, because I could have exactly what I wanted if everyone could agree on the money. I think that everyone is underestimating how much consumers are willing to pay for content. If you have HBO and Cinemax, you're paying $20-25/mo, three times what Netflix charges. If there is better content on Netflix, obviously everyone is going to jump ship from cable. I totally agree that Neflix is awesome for Indie movies. Where I live there are very few theaters that show indies, so to all of a sudden have access to a lot of movies I would otherwise never ever hear about, let alone see, is awesome. I hope the powers that be at Netflix realize this and promote the shit out of that side of their business, perhaps even help fund it. Maybe with House of Cards Netflix wanted to make a splash, so that's why they went the $100m route. But hopefully long term they'll keep in mind that a good script is way more important than a high budget. Seinfeld was 90% shot in that one crappy set of Jerry's apartment, and it's one of the greatest TV shows of all time. (Obviously, it turned high budget after a couple seasons, because the actors commanded such a high price, but it certainly didn't start out that way.)There's ample reason, lots of it quoted in the article.
If you're paying Time Warner Cable $25 a month for HBO, Time Warner is keeping $13 of that. Thus does Time Warner have a disincentive to let you get HBO any way other than Time Warner Cable. And, should HBO upset Time Warner Cable, they've lost their primary outlet for getting their content to you. Netflix gets to keep it all. | If there is better content on Netflix, obviously everyone is going to jump ship from cable.| Yes, precisely. But right now, the cable companies get to charge you through the nose for bandwidth you aren't using - I mean, you've got 300 channels but you can only watch one of them at a time. They're making money hand over fist. There was a time when I was looking at becoming a cable TV company and instaling in nursing homes and the like. I'm certified by Blonder Tongue. I know cable plants. And while 1 seat of HBO costs $39 a month, 100 seats of HBO cost closer to $390 a month. It gets extraordinarily fucking lucrative to be a cable company very, very quickly. This is why everyone is scared shitless by Google Fiber - they're going to suck all the profit out of the entire sector for everyone. Great for consumers, shitty for the industry. Now, granted - it's an industry that deserves to die. But they are facing an existential crisis, and they are closer in demeanor to a wounded mastodon than a geriatric old man quietly sipping his morphine. 'cuz for now, if you've got Netflix, you've got cable. Period. That shit don't work over DSL and everybody with a phat enough pipe to sell you broadband is also selling you channels.