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Comment by isomorphic | Hacker News Reader

> Media executives have said they expect new TV distributors like Apple and Amazon to pay more for their channels than existing distributors.

Meanwhile, most people under a certain age are not ever bothering with cable TV. Why would they pay more just to see it via the Internet?

I'm trying to understand the nameless "media executives'" mindset, but all the news I read shows their current business model being dead and buried in 10-20 years.

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"Most" is an overstatement. The numbers I've seen suggest that ~25% of 25-34 year olds don't have cable although the number is rising.

I was hoping Apple would be able to pull it off because I certainly don't get my money's worth out of my cable TV subscription. Unfortunately, I can get nothing over the air so it's more or less all or nothing and I haven't quite gotten myself to the point where I cut live TV off 100%.

the danger is that some in their zeal to not pay for the cable bundle find themselves paying more for less content. it isn't hard to OD on streaming for money, especially when starting out

fortunately where I live I can get a lot of local channels which means big networks too through a simple twenty dollar digital antenna

There's an advertising revenue stream in the legacy distributors. Either OTA commercials or in-stream ad insertion in the likes of Hulu, etc.

It's great to think 10-20 years ahead and dream of a 100% ala-carte VOD world, but someone still has to pay for it all.

I'm pretty sure the death of the media model will coincide with the death of the notion that "real life" is something separate from the Internet.

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