2012-12-01

Torrents: the new TiVo

Dear CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, et alii:

Please put out your shows as torrents.

We know you have contractual obligations with cable providers, iTunes, NetFlix, Hulu, and others.  Hang on for a minute and hear us out.

Torrents are the new TiVo.  More importantly, torrents are the new TiVo with a near-ZERO distribution cost.  Once seeded, your shows reside on 1000s of your customers machines.  You need never build a delivery service nor ever buy bandwidth.  No Amazon S3 cloud which died repeatedly, taking out Netflix.  No global data center placement hassles or edge location services like Akamai. No software "apps"; they're built.  Shows flow from you to consumer, world-wide, for free.

Your Nielsen nerds can track who downloads and how many times so you know which programs and episodes start and stay popular.  We know you read torrent tracker data; put it to work.  Use it to sell commercials.

And we will watch the commercials.  

We promise.  Shows' writers pace scripts around commercials.  We need those advertisements to (a) give our minds a pause from the subtleties of "Real Beverly Hills Housewives" and (b) make sense of consumer society.  Without commercials, we lose track of when the latest Doritos flavor becomes available or which movies to enqueue or what latest neato iThingy to feel smug about iNstalling.

In truth, we need the commercial breaks to go get more Doritos.

Torrent your product.  We watch, you profit. Then you go make more episodes of "Two and a Half Men" or whatever else Chuck Lorre poops onto paper this week.  You know we will watch anything, anywhere, anytime.  It's doomed to happen.  Make it so.


Sincerely,

:Couch Nerds of America