What do you think about a situation in which a consumer would be happy to pay full price to watch content, but they are prevented entirely by a service provider?
For example, suppose where you live there is a monopoly ISP-cable conglomerate, you cannot afford to move away, and you are literally unable to consume from any other ISP / cable level provider.
For some content, like watching European soccer in the US, this situation can mean that you are literally prevented from properly paying money to see that content, even though providers exist who can take your money and give you the content. It might even come down to your specific zip code, street, or even apartment building in some cities, where a content provider is case-by-case prevented from selling their content to certain residents purely based on whether a certain ISP has a monopoly on that location.
Telling the consumer to just not watch seems morally hollow in that specific case (which is a really common case). The customer wants to pay, and a third-party wants to give the content, but a rent-seeking middleman that the consumer has no control over (ISP) can limit the customer’s choices. The customer cannot do what the market would suggest and take their business elsewhere to incentivize the services they want, and because of the ubiquitous need for internet connectivity to conduct basic life duties, totally boycotting the monopoly ISP is functionally not an option. (Really, it would not be reasonable to suggest such a drastic option.)
I don’t see any ethical reason why the consumer should just accept being worse off (in terms of planned consumption), since it’s pure rent-seeking and value destruction on the part of the ISP, which the consumer is literally prevented from rejecting.
Many other ISP behaviors are likewise just artificial rent-seeking attempts, to construct artificial tiering, bundling, etc., which the consumer is prevented from “not buying” because the service provider is often literally a monopoly.
I’m just curious if you take an extreme view of this, that the ISPs or monopoly providers “are right” to use their monopoly position to introduce artificial rent-seeking opportunities? And that if a customer must choose between either paying the rent-seeking premium, stealing the content, or not consuming at all, that the customer should accept that the ISP / content provider’s ability to inflict this situation (through what are unequivocally antitrust violations that are just not punished solely because of regulatory capture) does indees mean the consumer just should opt to not consume at all?
Essentially, “because ISPs spend money on regulatory capture, I should accept living a worse life by not consuming at all rather than watching illegally.”
> Telling the consumer to just not watch seems morally hollow in that specific case
Seems like big word for something which is not food, water, life saving drug or some such. Now people are free to consider entertainment as basic human right. But similarly other powerful people/institution feel free to take away more fundamental things from helpless people.
From where I am, government is more than happy to offer free entertainment produced by private parties while feel no obligation to clean up almost sewer quality water running through taps of millions of homes.
So because information content is not the same as food, it’s ok for corporations to be artificially advantaged and consumers to be artificially disadvantaged? And consumers aren’t allowed to consider the moral implications of the arrangement? Or what it incentivizes companies to do? Or whether their ability to consume content is limited by regulatory capture?
I am not convinced by your reply because it tries to flip it around and blame the consumer (the victim of regulatory capture and ISP monopolies or oligopolies) just because the thing they are being deprived of “is not food.”
No part of this is related to whether something is a human right — that’s completely unrelated.
The problem is why should I, as a consumer, agree to accept a worse life in any way, even a minor way based on what is convenient for a corporation acting to ensure regulatory capture and ensure monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions within which it can unilaterally control what a consumer is allowed to consume.
It's not just entertainment. I live in New Zealand and have very limited (1 satellite tv provider and a few streaming services) choice in what news and documentaries I can legally watch. If I wanted to watch an interview on MSNBC my there is no legal way to do so and I would have to stream it illegally. Same case for many HBO documentaries.
I see this as a limiting factor on freedom of speech that will only continue to get worse if the market is further fragmented.
For example, suppose where you live there is a monopoly ISP-cable conglomerate, you cannot afford to move away, and you are literally unable to consume from any other ISP / cable level provider.
For some content, like watching European soccer in the US, this situation can mean that you are literally prevented from properly paying money to see that content, even though providers exist who can take your money and give you the content. It might even come down to your specific zip code, street, or even apartment building in some cities, where a content provider is case-by-case prevented from selling their content to certain residents purely based on whether a certain ISP has a monopoly on that location.
Telling the consumer to just not watch seems morally hollow in that specific case (which is a really common case). The customer wants to pay, and a third-party wants to give the content, but a rent-seeking middleman that the consumer has no control over (ISP) can limit the customer’s choices. The customer cannot do what the market would suggest and take their business elsewhere to incentivize the services they want, and because of the ubiquitous need for internet connectivity to conduct basic life duties, totally boycotting the monopoly ISP is functionally not an option. (Really, it would not be reasonable to suggest such a drastic option.)
I don’t see any ethical reason why the consumer should just accept being worse off (in terms of planned consumption), since it’s pure rent-seeking and value destruction on the part of the ISP, which the consumer is literally prevented from rejecting.
Many other ISP behaviors are likewise just artificial rent-seeking attempts, to construct artificial tiering, bundling, etc., which the consumer is prevented from “not buying” because the service provider is often literally a monopoly.
I’m just curious if you take an extreme view of this, that the ISPs or monopoly providers “are right” to use their monopoly position to introduce artificial rent-seeking opportunities? And that if a customer must choose between either paying the rent-seeking premium, stealing the content, or not consuming at all, that the customer should accept that the ISP / content provider’s ability to inflict this situation (through what are unequivocally antitrust violations that are just not punished solely because of regulatory capture) does indees mean the consumer just should opt to not consume at all?
Essentially, “because ISPs spend money on regulatory capture, I should accept living a worse life by not consuming at all rather than watching illegally.”