This is despite the fact that every show I have watched on internet TV (at least the free ones) has been loaded with ads.  Of course the movie and TV industry has suffered from a lack of understanding of the internet for some time. They still labor under the impression that opening up too much will suddenly open the flood gates and their multi-billion dollar a year industry will suddenly go broke.  We all know this is not the case but you can see this greed bubbling up in the way the industry is moving.

Netflix has just raised their rates in response to the likelihood that the movie studios will demand longer sale only windows on newly released DVDs and to combat the increasing use of recording enabled home devices.  Fox is going to push back content for non-subscribers (cable, satellite or Hulu) for 8-day. HBO has launched an internet portal that is only open to HBO subscribers (and may end up being a paid service as well).  These examples are only the tip of iceberg as we move through 2011. We have heard rumblings that aggregation services like GlideTV, SageTV and others are having their licensing rate raised; which will force some out of business or to require payment for services.

Yep, the days of the Internet as a free (legal) or at least inexpensive place for media content is quickly going the way of the dodo…  Here we thought the movie and TV industry was finally getting what people really wanted.

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