Mulling cable

Yay. Long link worked.

Chiming in on something glanced back upthread almost 20 minutes ago :

"Pass a law to debundle cable channel packages.
Let the free market wipe out the sources of crap propaganda." -Diogenes' Lamp

Let me think. If it's a free market, the cable providers should be able to offer packages or a la carte as they choose, right?

Of course, cables are a monopoly in the first place, so it's not like you can vote with your dollars by leaving your package-provider for an a-la-carte-provider.

Ergo, yes, by way of whatever level of your gov't permits the cable, you could demand a law insisting upon a-la-carte. You could even demand as many a-la-carte offerings as possible. This would produce a relative free-market within the monopoly, with the intended effect if wide-spread enough.

At this point, as a businessperson, I can see you could get either a disincentivised or a crony-ized cable provider, unless there is very strict supervision, and you get into the question of what else your government can demand the cables carry, or not, depending on which parties are in charge of your government down the line.

Soon enough (and, for some of us, already), it all is just Internet. The problems are still there, transferred to the providers. Again, who gets the cable monopoly, or the cell airwaves, or whatever other government-'permitted' sources of transmission, can threaten your freedom as a consumer, and as a member of the "free press" of modern networking.

There's going to be a serious front in the war on liberty inside them thar intertubz. Oh, wait, did I say going to be?