[projectvrm] The unbundling of TV, the end of cable, and the rise of a new #VRM network context

[Doc Searls < >]

On Oct 20, 2014, at 3:59 AM, Dean Landsman < "> > wrote:

Oops, I forgot to include the link to the full story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/business/cbs-to-offer-web-subscription-service.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

I'm breaking this away from the other thread because I think the subject is mostly different.

It's also not exactly #VRM except in the technical — network — context.

Where we end up is with Bob Frankston's ambient connectivity: "the ability to assume connectivity anywhere and anytime."

What we have now are three services vectoring in that direction:

1. Home and work Net connections over Ethernet & wi-fi. Most of these today (at least in the U.S.) are from cable TV companies
2. Business Net connections, both paid and free (what we get in hotels, coffee shops, businesses, schools and so on)
3. Mobile data, from our mobile phone companies.

All of these are to some degree silo'd from each other, especially mobile. But the walls will come down. That's what Dean's Times story suggests, without saying so.

The story is about the defection of TV channels from cable-only to the Net. HBO was the first to talk it up. CBS is the second. At this stage these are just early feelers. But defecting is what those companies want to do, and at some point the dam breaks. When it does, TV as we knew it will end. There will just be video, some free and some requiring payment (either by subscription or à la carte). But it will all be over the Net, along with everything else.

Once that happens, and it's clear to the data transport companies that ambient connectivity is good for business, then the opportunities for doing businesses will start to explode, because the opportunities to signal intentions (to sell, to buy, to service, to require service, to recommend) will open up all the way. 

Doc