

Paul Graham swings and misses: what he doesn't get about TV - brlewis
http://www.morganwarstler.com/post/83348608/paul-graham-swings-and-misses-what-he-doesnt-get

======
harpastum
PG might not have hit a home run, but the author's arguments here are
generally either flawed or unfounded, and the ends with a giant piece of
_spam_. I'm sure I could spend my time much more productively than arguing
with this article, but it's hard not to comment when someone is wrong on the
Internet.

1\. "It is frankly amazing...that we pretend [communication] should cost
dramatically less to obtain on a monthly basis than...other less valuable
things."

There is no denying the fact that supply and demand have an impact on pricing,
but let me be clear here: the price of Internet connectivity is going down. No
company is going to decide that connectivity is really 'worth' more than
they're charging and raises prices. It would be suicide. As for the technical
side, wireless and wired solutions are being brought forth every day that
reduce cost. There is no implicit 'value' being provided than shuttling some
bits down a tube (or a series of them).

4."Every TV will soon have a unique IP address."

Excuse the ad hominem attack, but any person well enough acquainted with
technology to say "Paul Graham is wrong." should understand how the Internet
works well enough to avoid making incorrect statements like this. Even if he
did mean that each TV would have a distinct IP address on networks, that
really has no bearing at all on the discussion at hand.

3."To give you some Big TV math to work with: One hour of Prime Time TV is
worth approximately .64 cents for every single viewer (32 :30 second ads * .02
cents per ad)."

Here it is again. That etherial substance called 'worth.' Even assuming these
numbers are correct (the article cites no sources), the current going rate has
almost no bearing on the future.

And then the kicker:

4\. "Our new company, SaysMe TV has a new model, ... a new form of TV
commercial, available for national 'local cable' campaigns meant to be 'Tivo-
resistant.'"

This is as close as the author comes to simply admitting that this post is an
ad.

In summary, this article is flamebait, linkbait, and spam.

~~~
jerf
I bailed halfway through the first full paragraph: "From 30K feet, all video
is becoming Internet video; it is digital and accessed via standard http
(progressive download) protocols. However video being on the Internet doesn’t
mean that it will be freely available."

I said to myself, "I don't recall Paul making that argument." And I looked
back, and he didn't. Modern-day piracy is cited as being part of the reason
internet video is winning (a simple observation), but he also says: "But
iTunes shows that people will pay for stuff online, if you make it easy. A
significant component of piracy is simply that it offers a better user
experience." Clearly his argument is not that internet video will be or should
be free.

With a strawman in sentence two, I'm not terribly impressed.

------
IsaacSchlueter
Comment posted on the site:

\---------

Do you really mean 0.64 cents? As in, 0.0064 dollars, or $0.0064?

If you mean 64 cents, you should remove the decimal point. ".64 x" means "64
hundredths of an x". You wrote ".64 cents" which would be "64 hundredths of a
cent", or a little more than half a penny. A dollar would pay for 156 viewer-
hours of prime time tv.

I would be more than willing to shell out a penny to watch an episode of The
Office without commercials. By your math above, that would be a 36% profit for
Big TV.

Why aren't the networks just asking me to chip in a penny per episode that I
watch? Better yet, charge me $5 a month to download and watch all the TV I can
get my grubby little hands on? Even if I torrent ALL of it, my $5 would have
covered the price of admission of every viewer who would "steal" it. It's not
hard to provide convenience worth $5. Of course, if you don't mean what you
wrote, but actually mean $0.64, then it would cost $500 to make that deal, and
I'll just download it from the folks who ripped it from the cable stream.

Whether you mean 0.64 dollars (ie, 64 cents), or 0.64 cents (ie, $0.0064), it
would be far more interesting if you cited your source for this information.
Your argument seems to hinge on this number to some extent, so it would be far
more forceful if you were clear about where it's coming from and what it
means.

~~~
tlrobinson
I wanted to strangle the guy when he responded to you with "Yes indeed $.64
cents". Whoosh.

~~~
buugs
A lot more people make the mistake than you would think.

below is a link to a guy who got charged over because of such a mistake a
while ago, he even has a recorded phone conversation of people missing the
point

[http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-
know-...](http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-
from-cents.html)

but anyone who has a startup like he does should know how to advertise rates,
sometimes people are just too dense

------
spoiledtechie
He needs to do a bit of proof reading. PG articles are a lot better read than
Morgans...

~~~
SwellJoe
He needs a course in logical fallacies, the meaning of "ad hominem" and "straw
man", and a sound lashing for using obvious and egregious link bait to
advertise his also ran video startup.

I don't usually pick on early stage startups, but when you fail this hard and
waste my time by convincing me to read it, well...all's fair.

------
Tichy
From the article: :

"Instead of using brand dollars to create programming that can’t be skipped,
it instead urges brands to continue buying TV commercials, but to insert
content into those commercials that people are more likely to watch: important
local event and community announcements."

I can't help it, this evokes some really funny thoughts. I imagine the coffee
family having their well lighted morning coffee after their sweatless morning
run, and then smiling into the camera with their well lighted teeth announcing
local news. That would be so surreal. Maybe some day they can even know my
name and tell me news about my own life.

------
blueben
"If only things were like I think they should be, then everything would be
right."

------
chiffonade
What most computer people don't get about TV is that there are millions upon
millions of intellectual lazy and/or socially malleable people who would
rather follow the tube. It's a demographic, and it's not going away.

~~~
axod
If you have kids, not having a TV is plain cruelty.

~~~
gruseom
_If you have kids, not having a TV is plain cruelty._

You could just as easily argue the opposite!

Do you know what kids do (in my experience, at least) if there is no TV
around? They read.

The main problem with having no TV is the risk of it becoming forbidden fruit
in the kid's mind and thus becoming _more_ attractive. We hit, inadvertently,
on a nice solution to this: we always had a TV around, just a really crappy
one. It was rarely on. The kids were welcome to watch TV at friends' houses or
their grandparents'. At home, that time mostly went into reading or playing.

Edit: I don't recall any evidence that they felt socially out of step with TV-
watching peers. I do remember that when Power Rangers were a huge deal, our
daughter became passionate about Power Rangers, so we always let her watch it.
Then one day she said: "I don't care about Power Rangers any more. The story
is always the same." That was a proud day in the gruseom household! :)

~~~
axod
>> "Do you know what kids do (in my experience, at least) if there is no TV
around? They read."

That's a pretty vast generalization and IMHO extremely wishful thinking. Is
this from personal experience? eg your own kids?

When mine aren't watching TV, they're doing many other things - playing,
reading, screaming, fighting, drawing, etc etc etc.

TV is but one activity, but I believe it's one they should certainly have in
moderation.

~~~
gruseom
_Is this from personal experience?_

Yes, when I say "in my experience" I am generally referring to my personal
experience. :)

No doubt having a lot of books around, parents who read, and general
encouragement to read are all factors as well.

~~~
axod
Yup I'd say those are the biggest factors. I dislike the notion that reading
is somehow better than other activities though. Kids need a balanced diet.

Socially, I'd argue that TV is better for kids than books.

