Walmart is starting to sell television sets with the software
guts of Comcast, the cable TV provider and owner of the Universal movie studio
and TV networks including NBC.
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These Comcast TVs may never be bestsellers. But they are
interesting because of what they represent: the corporate land grab to become
the starting point for all things streaming in Americans’ homes.
Comcast, Amazon, Roku and many other companies imagine that we
might watch “Monday Night Football,” gawk at the latest Netflix costume drama
and sit through a YouTube science video all through one of their TV sets or
gadgets.
Selling the equipment is not the goal but a means to an end.
Their objective is to make money from selling ads or by pointing people to
watch “Halloween” on a streaming service that pays for the promotion. Comcast
wants to use its TV sets to pitch its Peacock streaming service.
It is one of the highest-stakes battles in corporate America
right now. There is power and money to be made for the companies that can
persuade us to use their hardware as the starting spot for our virtual leisure
time.
There is nothing necessarily odd or wrong with this. The fight
to be Americans’ go-to spot for all entertainment has been raging for decades
in media and technology.
Starting in the 1990s, Bill Gates wanted people to use Microsoft
technology to watch TV programs as well as power their personal computers.
Beginning in the 20th century, video boxes from Comcast or other cable
providers were the gateway to TV and other home entertainment. Comcast in the
21st century has a similar idea. It is old TV in a new disguise.
I do not blame you if you just want to watch “
Squid Game” on
Netflix and not think too hard about dudes in suits trying to win the
behind-the-scenes war for your TV screen. But it might be worth considering
what we gain and lose from this streaming fracas.
Amazon Fire TV nudges people to buy online movies from Amazon
and has prominent promotions from other streaming apps that pay Amazon to get
right in front of your eyeballs. At times, Roku streaming devices have not
included some entertainment apps including YouTube TV and HBO Max because of
financial spats between the companies.
Entertainment programmers such as Netflix and Disney want to get
bigger themselves so they have more power than the distributors such as Amazon,
Roku and Comcast.
This new streaming world is glorious (so much to watch!) but
more annoying than it should be because there is so much money at stake and
companies want to win control. And that highlights an oddity of the internet
age: It has both neutered old-world gatekeepers like conventional cable TV
providers, big-box stores and newspapers, and created powerful new ones.
Amazon gave us choices of products that we never had in physical
stores, but the company also has enormous influence over which products get
noticed. Almost anyone can create a smartphone app, but Apple, Google and other
app store owners largely control which ones we can download and on what terms.
Anyone can post their dance videos or ideas online, but the Facebook or TikTok
computer systems determine how many people see them.
This is what drives me crazy about the new digital worlds. We
have so much choice at our fingertips, but in reality there are still power
brokers that have enormous influence to steer what we see, do or buy.
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