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Originally Posted by
Gatorguy 
The content providers will probably fight ala-carte programming pretty hard, and with good reason. There's a lot of excellent content from the Science Channel, History channel (some bad there too), NatGeo and others, but they're not the popular mind-numbing viewing choice for most people most of the time. Should those fall by the wayside for lack of revenue in favor of TBS reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond" ?
There's a lot of programming I never would have seen (example: the Elegant Universe on PBS and America: The Story of Us on the History Channel ) if my family only paid for what they
thought they wanted to see, only because we didn't know what was out there.
It would be a shame if educational channels were forced into including sitcoms just to survive.
It would be a shame, assuming all those things come to pass as a result. But I'm not really convinced. It assumes that everyone would abandon packages, and that's just not true. Packages will still be a good value, but the fact is they don't serve everyone well. I think some channels would benefit, because a lot of channels are stuck in higher tier packages, inaccessible to those that don't care to spend so much. I'm not going up a tier to get NatGeo and Science.
Your PBS example doesn't seem right, because PBS airs their content for free, no cable sub required. Most of History Channel's prime shows have nothing to do with history, I'd say they've already deviated from their mission under the current model. The Travel Channel is about people going places to eat and talking about eating, travel is incidental many times. Cartoon Network is showing live action, SciFi (now SyFy) is showing a lot that has nothing to do with its original mission. Don't get anyone started on MTV, which now pretty means eMpTV. All these are examples of "phoning it in" already happening under the current regime, maybe it's time to cull the herd a little.
This anguish on both sides about whether or not to allow a la carte may be beside the point. Linear channels are an artifact of an old regime, and paying for access to bundles and tiers of ad-based linear channels is pretty bizarre on top of that, it might help everyone if channels weren't locked away in bundles.
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Originally Posted by
Negafox 
Steve Jobs was initially resistant to the idea of third-party apps, but pressure from within Apple and third parties convinced him otherwise.
Is that really known, or is that just reading into the situation? I haven't seen anything that was supposed to be the real story. I think it's at least as likely that they planned it all along, but they weren't ready. After all, it was a brand-new platform, it may have been an extension of what they have already done, but there was a lot of new ground cut there.
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It is the fact that streaming services like Netflix are a superior offering to consumers. I want to see something that gives both cable AND Netflix a run for their money.
AppleTV does offer Netflix playback ability.