The television and movie industries don’t want to change. They’re digging their heels in. Trying to hold on to the cash-cow of the past.
Think of the music industry a few years back before they finally resigned to the reality of digital music. Starz just walked away from its deal with Netflix in a bout of extraordinarily short-termed thinking. Apple hasn’t figured out how to work this out in a way that makes sense monetarily for both the content provider (the networks) and the viewer (you).
But in reality, the move to the cloud is inevitable. Let’s look at our music comparison again. We have less $10 million record deals than ever before. Because I can make a professional-sounding recording in my basement for $2,000. Now, making TV-quality content on the cheap isn’t quite available yet. Which is why we’re still having this discussion rather than buying a la carte episodes online of every show on television.
So, the question is, will TV quality go down if the same amounts of money aren’t there anymore? It’s hard to see how it can’t.