On the decision to block Boxee from Hulu

Lately, I’ve been thinking about building up a cheap, small computer so that I could load Boxee, a great little media center program that lets you watch streaming video, catalog movies and music, download torrents from the convenience of a TV and remote control. Yesterday, the content providers that control Hulu forced it to block Hulu video from the Boxee software. It put a dent in my plans but also made me think about the ramifications of that decision and how this small thing might affect the future of the TV and movie companies.

Here’s the thoughts that I posted to the O’Reilly Radar blog about this subject:

The Hulu content providers see TV’s competition as the Boxee company and packaged software. In truth, TV’s competition is the distribution technologies that power Boxee - streaming video, downloads, and torrent - in an easy to use interface.

It’s the classic shortsighted mistake that the music industry made when they thought killing Napster would cause music sharing to stop. They could have worked with Napster to figure out effective and competitive revenue models. Instead in the absence of a single convenient music sharing website and platform, multiple competing websites and technologies were created. The music industry had no chance and no single entity to sue.

People want content wherever and whenever they choose and with the most convenience. If it isn’t available through Boxee then consumers will invent ways to get around and surpass it. In a few years, we’ll all be saying the same thing, namely, that blocking Boxee from Hulu was one of the critical missteps that led to the end of the TV/movie content provider industry as we knew it.