Earlier this month we noted how Disney and ESPN had sued Sling TV for the cardinal sin of actually trying to innovate. Sling TV’s offense: releasing new, more convenient day, weekend, or week-long shorter term streaming subscriptions that provided an affordable way to watch live television.
These mini-subscriptions, starting at around $5, have already proven to be pretty popular. But, of course, it challenges the traditional cable TV model of getting folks locked into recurring (and expensive) monthly subscriptions. Subscriptions that often mandate that you include sports programming many people simply don’t want to pay for.
So of course Time Warner has now filed a second lawsuit (sealed, 1:25-mc-00381) accusing Dish Network of breach of contract. In the complaint, Warner Bros lawyer David Yohai argues that this kind of convenience simply cannot be allowed.
Well that’s too bad, because that means you don’t understand the fundamentals of capitalism, and how capitalism works with either democracy or other systems of governance.
Capitalism is very flexible, it’s all about the regulation and other economic policies by governments. The Scandinavian model is capitalistic, but emphasizes human values and not just profits.
What matters is the political balance between those, and in both cases capitalism is the proven best method we have yet. and mind you I am a traditional social democrat, meaning I am left of the Social Democratic party we have in Denmark.
I hate what stereotypical “capitalism” stands for, but the part about regulated free markets, is the best model that actually works yet.