Viacom and DirectTV are currently fighting over money while DirectTV customers are left without a bunch of channels. Today, on Hulu while watching Jon Stewart, a commercial came out asking folks to drop DirectTV. They even have a website now. In my opinion, this is rather childish at best. What is even more puzzling is that these companies don’t realize they are shooting themselves in the foot. Television viewers are already migrating from overpriced cable channel bundles to popular online options like Hulu and NetFlix and even piracy. Cable companies are very comfortable charging up the wazoo for a hundred channels where there might only be a few that you enjoy. They have failed to provide a la carte options for people to save money and give customers more power as to what they like to watch. On-Demand attempts have left much to be desired and it is not a solution. If I want to watch HBO, I should not have to get 80 other channels I will watch once a year.
However, the solution to piracy and the fleeing customer base to online only is quite simple. Convenience! They simply made it too hard to watch stuff. Contrary to popular belief, piracy is more of a service issue than a price issue. Take a look at Steam, the online game store, for example. It provides everything a customer can hope for. It is open 24×7, great prices, fast downloads, automatic game patches, cloud saves, huge selection of games, and a community. All a user has to do is to login with his or her Steam Account on any PC or MAC and with a couple of click is able to buy, download, and play games. Simple and Convenient.
In the other hand, Continue reading “They’ve made it too hard to watch stuff”