Open Letter to Netflix And Networks

Dear Visual Media Moguls.

First of all, to be perfectly clear, we don't really care about you. There will always be media, there will always be things we can watch. If you fail, someone else will be willing to work within our constraints and will be willing to play fair.

What do I mean by "play fair?" It is simple. We want to watch our shows. We don't want to be harrassed by your petty protection of rights. We are happy with commericals, and will frequently enjoy watching them, but we are not very pleased with jumping through hoops to view our content.

This world has changed, yet you seem to believe that business should continue as it always has. You no longer control the media. If we want to get it, we will. You cannot control the information. There are thousands of ways to 'steal' media with more coming.

That is not to say that I want to steal media. I do not. I pay for what I want to watch, or I watch commericals that pay for what I want to watch. I am happy with this arrangment. This is not what should change.

The attitude is what should change. The silly petty competition between networks should change. You do not argue about what television set is allowed to attach to which providers, do not incure the same restrictions online.

I am, of course, talking about Boxee and Hulu. Hulu has affiliations, I understand, with NBC and Fox, where Boxee has affiliations with CBS. Whoo-de-friggin-doo. Who cares? If I like NCIS and McGyver, I will watch those shows. If I like Heros, I will watch that show. The commercials are traced the same way, do not force me to endure your petty squabbles. I want a single interface and I want it to be open source.

Why Open Source? So it can be the best possible solution. You seem to think that the open source community is bent on stealing media. Really, if something is easily downloadable, it is not worth anything on the market of theivery. Just accept that, make your content available and stop the complaining.

I'm going to go watch some ST:TOS on Boxee now.

jsl