- You have to get content. Those people want to be paid. You are in competition for this.
- The cable companies control your air supply -- the bandwidth to your customers -- and unless you make them happy, your customers are screwed if they watch your stuff. Bandwidth caps on the order of 25GB / month are just crazy small for any amount of TV watching.
Apple could probably afford to buy Comcast (and Warner). That would suddenly be interesting.
That's why I said I'm not optimistic. I have the confidence that Apple can do an excellent job of creating a solid and intuitive UI and service. I have very little confidence that they will be able to make the sort of content deals necessary to make it have practical value.
I don't think the bandwidth caps are a big issue, because 720p video is probably 1 GB/hour. You would have to watch 8 hours/day to hit a 250 GB limit.
- You have to get content. Those people want to be paid. You are in competition for this.
- The cable companies control your air supply -- the bandwidth to your customers -- and unless you make them happy, your customers are screwed if they watch your stuff. Bandwidth caps on the order of 25GB / month are just crazy small for any amount of TV watching.
Apple could probably afford to buy Comcast (and Warner). That would suddenly be interesting.