> 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.
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.