01.05.14
The promise of ‘the Internet’
Have a laugh at the title, a bleak joke.
Today, if you’re American and want to listen to the Green Bay Packers /49ers game streaming on Internet radio, a game that is sold out, you can’t.
Corporate America put a stranglehold on the net. Local radio stations cannot stream NFL games because of “NFL rules.” The National Football League is one of the biggest money-making operations in American history.
Three years ago you could catch NFL games on radio. And ESPN often streamed some of them, as well as most college football games on-line.
Not anymore. If you gave up American cable television because of its monopoly power and unfair pricing, corporate American struck back.
Today, ESPN allows no viewing of any of the big bowl games, or most college football games, without making you first log in on-line through a cable television provider.
But you do know who gets ripped off by the internet in 2014?
Everyone else non-corporate. They — more, accurately, WE — all get to enjoy the alleged promise of the Internet without the power to make deals designed to maximize ballooning profits.
So America and the civilized world can still have all that free music from middle-sized to little guys at the big web portals.
Famous old meretricious saying:
That worked out well.