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.
Free market my ass
Well, it’s free after the rebate. But they don’t just give those out, you’ve gotta be loaded.
never have been
That’s hilarious. Sling has been around for a decade… and now they care.
You can tell traditional television is dying. An industry that isn’t struggling doesn’t consistently embarrass itself like this.
It reminds me of the major labels in the music industry, pissing their pants for ten years when iTunes and streaming became popular.
The “unofficial” streaming sites are better than the official ones at this point. A decent VPN costs less per month than any subscription to an official industry service.
Not only do these bastards collude to fix prices, they sue defectors.
If Capitalism is not working as intended then it should be scrapped. Supply and demand indeed.
So what’s the superior model to replace it?
Everything else that has been tried has failed.
And don’t give me some shit about a small community that thrives without capitalism, but exist as a pocket of a capitalistic society that supply all essentials to them.In a microcosm many models work, but most collapse at scale.
This is not a matter of capitalism vs something else, but capitalism vs capitalism.To be fair the US made damn sure that everything else that was tried would fail. Though to answer the question usually some form of social democracy with a regulated capitalist economy like you see in nordic countries.
I live in Denmark, and I can assure you, what we have is still capitalism.
It’s just regulated capitalism, to prevent harm, and ensure fair competition.
In principle it’s the same as USA, but with a political desire to maintain a different balance between capitalists and workers than USA.
But I agree, that among the systems we know of and have tried, the Scandinavian model seems to be among the better systems.
But maybe it all boils down to a stronger democracy, with 12 parties represented in parliament, and the government consisting of 4 cooperating parties.
I think that helps create a better balance, and the American 2 party system, both destroys a good balance, and it also rob voters of the ability to vote for something they actually feel represent their wishes.On a funny side-note, every research done into the matter that I know of, shows that Scandinavian countries have greater freedom than USA! Especially on the freedom of speech, we have way bigger freedom than Americans.
Capitalism is like alcohol. You don’t take it pure because bad things happen, possibly lethal things. It needs to be a limited amount as part of something bigger.
I agree, that’s what we usually call regulated, only about half of USA think regulation is a poison, all other countries understand regulation much better.
Just adding the bailouts for right wing governments that bow to the fascists, like Argentina recently. As you said, there’s no level playing field.
So what’s the superior model to replace it?
Everything else that has been tried has failed.The same could have been said in feudal times. However, thanks to smarter people, silly arguments like this didn’t stop attempts at progress. If people of the past followed your own logic, you’d be a slave right now. Think about that.
Feudalism is a fixed structure of society, that was also capitalist.
To day we have democracy which is better but is also capitalist.
In principle capitalism is usually about free markets that are generally controlled, because otherwise the system quickly collapses.
Attempts at non free market systems is generally planned economy, for instance the infamous Soviet Union 5 year plans.
To get rid of capitalism we need to get rid of all shortages for everybody, and that is not on the near horizon.
Feel free to think of a solution, but let’s not throw overboard what has worked better than anything else, before we have something real to replace it with.
And not just philosophical bullshit about how nice it would be.
Capitalism, domesticated by socialism, resulted in the largest growth of human quality of life and productivity from about 1930 to 1980. Then capitalism eroded the socialism and wealth inequality started to increase.
Absolutely, in USA progress ended and things began to turn to shit when Americans chose Reagan over Jimmy Carter.
What does a surgeon replace a tumor with once it’s been removed?
damn, that is a good analogy
That’s an invalid analogy, or at a very minimum it requires explanation.
I think the only point we can get rid of capitalism, is when there is no shortages of anything for anyone.
Until then it needs to be regulated, and dreams and claims of just removing it are counterproductive, because we simply can’t at this point in time.
Capitalism also isn’t the problem, lack of regulation and allowing the 1% to control everything is.Scandinavian countries are free market capitalist countries, and although they aren’t perfect either, they are better for the general population than the American 2 party system.
How you run your democracy is crucial, democracy is supposed to control society, not the 1%.You are conflating capitalism and markets. As much as capitalists would like for everyone to believe they are one and the same, they are completely distinct from one another.
That’s just a load of hoola boola.
Per definition capitalism and free markets are tied.
Soviet Russia also used money for their planned economy, but it was not free markets, and hence not considered a capitalist country by any normal definition of the word.You are conflating rhetoric with an actual argument. And you are dismissing a normal definition without providing an alternative.
So what is capitalism pray tell?
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this shows your like of imagination or even research.
keep in mind that modern capitalism is like a few hundred years old, humanity existed for longer than that.
this shows your like of imagination or even research.
IDK but for some reason I read it like LACK of like, but it actually doesn’t either way, and I think you I think you should read some of my other posts before jumping to that conclusion.
You are extrapolating on too little evidence.humanity existed for longer than that.
Yes and much was tried, and capitalism replaced it all because it works better. Including more modern attempts like planned economy.
Maybe we find something better in the future, but we haven’t yet. For now the key is regulation to prevent everything going to the 1% so they own and control everything.
And I will gladly admit that we are failing at that, but for instance in USA that is a fault of a dysfunctional democracy, not a fault of capitalism, because everybody knows capitalism does that if not properly regulated. And USA has chosen to allow it, because democracy between only 2 parties doesn’t work.
Off the top of my head, something like social ownership of all necessities (e.g. housing healthcare education security natural resource management etc.) utilities (e.g. water/sewer electricity internet garbage etc.) and infrastructure (e.g. bridges dams public transportation systems etc.), administered by a network of democratically elected and transparently administered (e.g. subject to public records requests, required to make annual reports, etc.) local and regional councils with a variety of checks and balances on each other, reserving luxury and entertainment goods and services for private ownership, and establishing strong legal and cultural recognition of individual’s free speech and privacy rights (and I think at a minimum privacy requires every person having their own room with a door that locks, so
societye; the tenants collectively own the apartment complex (but the maintenance is funded by a neighborhood council that is funded by a city council that etc.) but you own your unit)That sounds very good, and I agree. But I think even that system would be capitalistic too. But with way more control and ownership of it given to the people instead of the 1%.
In Denmark we have some of that, although it was partially undermined by the right wing government in the 80.
But electric infrastructure is “in principle at least” owned by the users. The same is somewhat true with water supply, Public transportation, Postal services used to be but aren’t anymore. Some of our internet infrastructure is indirectly publicly owned. So we have 1 Gbit internet at a fair price.
All these things exist fine withing a well regulated capitalist system, and even with private competition. The real key is taxes and distribution of wealth, and in that regard the biggest problem is to balance being part of an international community, which a small country like Denmark absolutely has to be, and balance that with the race to the bottom we often see from other countries.It would for instance be easier to tax the rich fairly, if there weren’t tax shelters. But the rich can spend a lot of money on tax and accounting specialists to avoid tax. And they are often very difficult to pursue legally.
These are the real world problems, not just the knee jerk “capitalism is the problem” that is so often thrown around.
How about we stop being stupid tribalists and just focus on real solutions to real problems?
I know that’s asking too much for people like /u/buffalox.
Thats very on-brand for these assholes.
Rent seeking as a way of life.
