Sling.TV has problems with licensing agreements where they can't show certain "in market" games, for instance. (There's other, subtler licensing problems too.)
The way that sports got split between the major networks and exclusivity agreements means that their cabal is essentially impossible to entirely replace via a streaming service for any kind of reasonable price even though I can sometimes get the product for free over the air.
Media licensing is a shitshow. Honestly, at this point, I'm for extending the situations under which a compulsory license is granted, setting up a fixed fee, and just letting people have at it.
We need a new model. Copyright as currently implemented is non-functional.
As just one instance of the copyright system breaking down, the DMCA has seriously stifled artists and led to massive censorship of controversial or critical material by vested interests and malicious actors. There are hundreds or thousands of articles on DMCA notices being used as restraint on legal speech or by people stealing the capitalization of content rather than copyright enforcement mechanism.
"Totally functional."
Startup idea: neural-network-based filter for social media applications to hide any discussion of the results of a particular game until after you watch it. Bonus if it can also hide movie spoilers.
Fuck no. Last thing you want is nation-states hacking that and delivering censorship straight to your mind or "Funny how this ballot has one candidate only".
People could even intentionally inflict this on themselves, such as "blocking" a person after a bad breakup so you can't see them or hear their names when they come up in conversation - I hear there might be a Black Mirror episode that touches on this (I'm yet to watch any of them).
Edit: Apologies for my off-topic rant: I read "neural-network-based filter" as "neural filter". I'll leave my comment as a monument to my derpery.
I ended up introspecting on the reasons for that, realized that every single one of them applied equally well to watching it live, and as a result stopped watching entirely.
There is no technical reason preventing anyone from streaming/recording sporting events. It's easy.
And don't say there's no competition, because I could totally in theory get 3Mbps DSL for the same price as 300Mbps cable.
1/10th the speed is proof of competition? Poe's Law strikes again!
That might be what they say, but I think it's to compete with Google. While Google may have given up on further fiber rollout after the existing ones, Google still plans to continue to expand and compete with AT&T and other broadband providers but as a wireless provider. Google Fi is just the start. When they bought up Motorola they ended making a better phone themselves (the Pixel). They're using Sprint and T-Mobile for Google Fi now, but plan to become a better wireless data provider.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether these plans will work.
That's not how ownership works. It's not "what they say". Either they own the company or they don't...
Google does not produce any TV channels, as far as I know.
AT&T is buying Time Warner because Comcast bought NBC/Universal. I'm pretty sure it's as simple as that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Time_W...
It seems like sports is the last frontier that's keeping traditional linear TV alive. Nobody wants to stream the game tomorrow; the outcome is already known which makes it unexciting to watch. Time Warner has plenty of exclusive sports deals, which gives AT&T leverage over their competition that also has exclusive sports deals (Comcast is the big one). If anything, this creates some incentive for cross-licensing that didn't exist before, which could in theory be good for end users. (I'll believe it when I see it, though.)
Alternatively, traditional TV still has a lot of money behind it, so it makes sense to keep it alive for as long as possible. If you couldn't buy HBO Now and you like HBO shows, your "only" choice is to buy all the channels you don't watch in order to be able to watch HBO. That would be good for both the cable company, and those other channels nobody wants. If a cable company controls HBO again, I think we can see where this is all headed.
Personally, I don't think AT&T can really afford this acquisition, so it might be the beginning of the end for them. If I were AT&T I would spin off everything that wasn't my spectrum licenses, and have a handful of employees raking in pure profit without having to deal with the pesky business of building infrastructure, producing television, billing customers, etc. Kind of like all the companies that own airplanes and lease them to the airlines, or I suppose DeBeers and diamond mines.