Offer Better Streaming Plans

The New York Times ran this article and it has tapped into a personal grudge of mine, well, at least two grudges/concerns that I have been harboring against both HBO and Spotify (just two of the companies that offer streamable content online and one of two that I subscribe to).

With HBO GO it bothers me to no end that they will not abandon, or at least open up, their content in a similar way that Hulu, Netflix, and a variety of other companies will: on a subscription basis.  I would happily abandon Netflix at $7.99 a month to subscribe to HBO Go at $9.99/month or even $15 or maybe even $20.  I don't want to get cable, I would have to use Comcast and I give them enough money a month just to retain high speed Internet access.  I called Comcast and said, "Just give me HBO," and they said they wouldn't without a base cable plan, plus a premium attachment.  That's just total bullshit.  It's just a money grab.  Sure, I would love basic cable so I could watch C-SPAN, TLC, and The History Channel.  But I don't need the infotainment triumvirate of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, or the shitty sports and other "lifestyle" channels.  And I shouldn't have to have access to them simply to get to premium content.

But, alas, HBO doesn't want to build the structure to deal with the end result, and when you have something that people will break down and buy regardless of the personal distaste listed above, what do they have to lose?  What was more interesting in the NY Times article is that HBO seems to understand that rampant sharing of their content is occurring, and they are taking this approach:

They have little ability to track and curtail their customers who are sharing account information, according to Jeff Cusson, senior vice president for corporate affairs at HBO. And, he said, the network doesn’t view the sharing “as a pervasive problem at this time.”

According to HBO, 6.5 million of its 30 million subscribers have signed up for HBO Go. When I asked Mr. Cusson if the network would consider figuring out a way to capture and monetize those slippery users who were piggybacking on others’ accounts, he declined to speculate on what might be possible.

“The best business approach at the time is in the business model that we currently have,” he said.

I can't see how this is not a win/win for HBO.  Just a little over 20% of it's subscription base has activated the free HBO GO feature, so those 6.5 million who are giving out their passwords are just giving HBO a free way to tout its exceptional programming, that could lead to people either 1) subscribing to HBO via cable provider or 2) purchasing HBO content either digitally or through DVDs.  Win/win.

As for Spotify, I have a love/hate relationship with those bastards.  They charge me $9.99 a month so I can stream practically any music I desire, but the minute my wife or I try to listen to different music through Spotify on any platform, it kicks one of us off.  That's pretty shitty Spotify - even Netflix doesn't pull that kind of crap.  I'm unwilling to give Spotify $20 large so both of us can listen to music.  Even old Ma Bell has a family plan for it's customers.  Which leads me to why this article was such a great boon (and worth my subscription to the digital NY Times), this might be a solution to my Spotify problem.

In the long run the old mid-twentieth century business model concerning entertainment/media is falling apart.  If content providers want to fight piracy (and let's face it, that is what streaming cheap to affordable priced digital content is attempting to do) they need to get smart, realize that we all have access to the content already, some of us are still willing to pay for what we get, just don't gouge us, the old system of price fixing is fading.