I’d gladly pay you upwards of $19.99 a month for direct access to HBO Go without a cable subscription. Netflix charges $7.99 a month for their streaming service right now, but thanks to your original programming, you’re worth a lot more. But Netflix original programming is coming soon, so your premium buffer won’t last forever. The time to strike is now.
$19.99 per month isn’t all that much. DirecTV charges $15/month for HBO with their service and I assume HBO gets a big chunk of that.
If you could remove your lips from the cable company teet for a minute, you’d find hundreds of thousands — and likely millions — of customers happy to pay a premium for access to HBO Go without the cable requirement right now. That number is only going to grow. And fast.
That seems to make sense, but it’s easier said than done. While they cut out the middle man, leading to more revenue, their overhead would increase mightily if there is more data to transfer directly to users1. Also, I am guessing that even if they can break contracts with cable companies, they would lose money on that side, where a majority of their subscribers would still lie.
I think the idea of HBO or ESPN being available without a cable subscription is still just a pipe dream. I am guessing that neither of those networks are in a position yet where they can increase overall profits by doing this. Five years from now, that might be different.
- I am assuming that, at the moment, HBO Go isn’t used all that much by most users [↩]
