MIKE ROSS wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 MR> "Roy J. Tellason" bravely wrote to "Greg
Mayman" (18 Mar 04 
 MR> 04:06:51)  --- on the heady topic of "{at}%^{at}#$%^ VEROBOARD"

 RJT> Greg Mayman wrote in a message to Mike Ross:
 GM> I'm tempted to think the aim is to drive people away from "free to
 GM> air" and onto cable and satellite.

 RJT> Sure.  But the folks who run the media will make out like bandits.

 RJT> There are way too many folks out there who'd like to see most of us
 RJT> paying, not just to buy a copy of music but to pay for the privilege
 RJT> of listening to it at all,  or to watch any tv at all,  and pay per
 RJT> view,  pay a monthly bill, it doesn't matter...

 MR> There is no business like one that brings in a monthly payment for
 MR> an apparent service. Insurance companies have learned this long 
 MR> ago.

Which is probably why they seem to be so much in bed with government, 
usually at the state level.  Come to think of it,  so are the phone
companies and the electric companies,  now that I'm thinking about that.  I
haven't found any government body that seems to want to take any
responsibility for cable, though.

 MR> However as to the content being devoid of ads because of it, is a 
 MR> rather naive notion because in the long run it won't.

I'm just noting that what I see on some of these channels is somewhat
different than what I'm seeing in "normal" broadcast channels...

 MR> The phone 
 MR> company would also like to be rid of pulse dialing phones. ;-)

Not as long as they can keep tacking on that extra surcharge for
touch-tone,  they won't.

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