THB #58: Streaming Doesn't Want To Be Free

The internet wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I’m old enough to remember Chris Anderson’s NY Times bestseller, “Free,” which explained, as many were doing in 2009, that information wanted to be free.

Ha ha.

About 10 years after “Free,” I cut my family’s cord. The costs and limitations of my provider, DirecTV, had become onerous enough and my fiber optic made my home internet-rich enough to take the leap.

But while I was free of the specific boundaries that my satellite provider (which were very much like I was hearing from friends with cable), there were a whole new set of companies with their hands out, looking for a cut, on the way to providing content to my increasingly giant television.