edithhopegardenjournal

Cable and satellite companies are increasingly finding it difficult to get the growth in customers and revenue they would like. Over the past 4 decades they achieved growth first by introducing services in new markets and by acquiring smaller providers and then, as unserved markets and acquisition opportunities declined, by offering an increasing number of channels, telephone and internet services.   The strategy increased customers and revenue, but inevitably let to a mature market in which only lower growth was possible. In the past decade cable and satellite overcome that maturity and achieved growth by offering a variety of new services and products to consumers--allowing them to access programming at times it is not offered on their channels or systems or in different forms--and syndicating their original programs and finding new income through merchandising and related activities. The development of connected TV and use of video on laptops, tablets, and smartphones has spurre...

Early in the rollout of the Internet, leaders of the emerging online companies described it as an immaterial world of virtual objects and virtual activity that was not subject to the economics, financing, laws, or business arrangements of the material world. They portrayed it is as world without structure in which informality and collaboration among users would guide its operation. They described it as global phenomenon beyond the reach of governments. Many expressed highly utopian visions of the internet. Most embraced a highly libertarian philosophy; some an anarchistic one. These leaders primary interacted with each other and deluded themselves into believing what they were doing was unique, hallowed, and beyond worldly oversight. Internet service providers saw themselves as facilitators without responsibility for who used them or for what purposes. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Huffington Post created value extracting models in which they expropriated the work of others as p...