Internet Advocates rip Comcast Broadband TV Everywhere.
Submitted by mauro on June 25, 2009 - 10:24am.
"Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge. 'Limiting access to programming is straight out of the cable playbook, going back to the days when Congress had to act in 1992 to allow the satellite programming distributors to have access to cable programming. ... We are concerned that this program violates the open nature of the Internet,' Sohn said. 'By adding this additional toll lane, Comcast and Time Warner want to create their own 'managed channel' within the Internet and turn the Internet into their own private cable channel.'
Roy Mark for eWeek
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Companies want to control how you watch online content
"With the pervasiveness of broadband and easy availability of tools that allow web video to leap onto your television, cable companies see that their video distribution pipes are becoming less relevant. So they want to control how you watch premium content online and want to impose fees via an authentication system." More here
Remember this is not about community building it is about profit.
Premium vs Ad Supported Content
I don't understand why people are upset. Premium content is better for free speech than ad supported content-- there's no incentive to alter your message to make advertisers happy.
Who cares if the only place you can watch HBO online is through your cable company's website? The only place you can watch it otherwise is through their cable box. If cable companies unfairly slow down or block competing companies' services and websites, that would be an abuse of their monopoly on the public cable networks. As far as I can tell, no one is claiming that. In the past, when cable companies have been guilty of unfairly blocking web sites the FCC has stepped in, so I'm not too worried.
Remember, there was a time when most average people on the Internet were using AOL. AOL tried to maintain their dominance with premium content only available to their subscribers, and that didn't work. I don't see how it would work for cable companies.
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