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believe that the disconnection between getting a product and paying for a product is one of the major underlying causes of piracy. For example, I can watch a TV show (over the airwaves) for free. But the show is NOT free, a group of advertizers paid for the show, and provide it for me to watch free in order to get me to watch their commercials and buy their product. The result is generations of people used to getting "free" entertainment. From their viewpoint (and I am <not> endorsing it, just describing it.), they have developed a philosophical problem. Why pay for things they are used to getting for free? To make it worse, they have the technical capabilites to get it free, even when it was only designed for a pay model. Hence piracy.
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I understand what you're saying here, but I don't feel that it is a good metaphor. The reason for this is that a large majority of people (at least here in the states) use cable or digital satellite. By default, they're paying a good chunk of money to get extra content. However, they're also using cable to receive content that they could get over the airwaves. Without the use of cable, terrestrial UHF stations would have no real chance of survival because the fidelity of their signal is so atrocious.
Also, there's the issue of
February 17th, 2009. By American law, all broadcast signals have to switch over to a digital signal. This means that everyone will either need to buy a digital television (if they don't have one already) or a converter box. Therefore, the consumer will have to pay more for a product they already get.
A better metaphor would be terrestrial radio. The stations put out a product that is subsidized by advertising or underwriting (for public radio). The consumer chooses to listen to a highly targeted station that will release advertisements custom tailored for that particular demographic. So, for example, John Deere will advertise on a country station and a imported cheese shop may underwrite the local NPR affiliate. This is stereotyping, I know, but that's how the game is played.
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Now I'm not sure but I don't believe I am that unusual. A business model that supplies free content and so on but pays for it by shoving adds down my face horrifies me. I would rather go without quite frankly.
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As someone who works in radio, I have to disagree. Of course my paycheck is provided by money generated by advertisements, but I think about it in a more direct way. If the advertisments are not directly on the surface, then they're more deeply embedded through product placement. A perfect example of this is the movie
Transformers. The movie felt to me like a huge endorsement of GM products. Also, there was the not-so-subtle usage of Macintosh computers in the Pentagon's analysis room. While I prefer macs, I find it unlikely that the government would use such a computer on that wide a scale.
I just prefer my indoctrination to be at the surface rather than the subconscious. ;-)