Quote:
Originally posted by Cynthetiq
that's exactly what is already happening to some extent on AOL and on the Viacom channels.. while it does make sense to do the cross polination there still has to be a way to ensure that the minority is also heard.
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Exactly, I was going to post to Macheath about AOL and their proprietary IM debate which mirrors his concern.
Just to somewhat place this in perspective:
Say if AOL had a mere 10% of the US population (~282 million people) subscribed to their broadband service at ~40 bucks per month. They would gross over 1.1 billion dollars per month just from one service. This doesn't even account for their other AOL products, their Warner Bros., and etc. I don't know how many subscribers they actually have, but I think a modest estimate of gross earnings for a corporation this large is approx. at least a 100 billion dollars per month.
Even though this is just off the top of my head, if this is even close to the case, that much concentration of wealth severely skews the balance of political and cultural power in modern society.