Streaming video? One more addiction to be wary of

There’s an article on Fred Wilson’s blog that starts with the following quote:

Yesterday morning I was talking to my 13 year old son Josh. He’s currently obsessed with the TV show Friday Night Lights. He’s going back and watching all the old seasons. I asked him how he is doing that, expecting to hear “bit torrent”. But instead he said “Netflix Watch Instantly”. I was so happy to hear that and asked him why. He said, “bit torrent takes too long.”avc.com, A VC, Jul 2009

He goes on to explain how streaming kills piracy and this is the true business model that entertainment industry should adopt.

I want to talk about something else today. It’s a bit about productivity and instant gratification. We’ve all heard and learned the hard way that you have to step away from TV and (other drugs like World of Warcraft) to start doing things or even just to study.

With the current form of piracy – bittorrent, rapidshare’s etc. you have to wait at least 10 minutes (on 10Mbit FTTH), to start watching the latest episode of your favorite show. It might take a few hours or days to download the whole season.

Enter the world of Hulu. You stumble upon a show like Dead Like Me and after you finish with the Pilot, there’s no hunting for complete season torrent and downloading in background while you finish the actual work. There’s an instant “play next episode button” and your only hope is that the Internet dies or that you fall asleep while watching it and you don’t continue in the morning.

So we now need to embrace on a new quest. Not only warn everyone that TV is bad for you, but that Hulu and similar are even worst as there is no way you can escape their embrace once you start watching. I’m even surprised that I managed to write this blog post.

Yes, Slovenia and most of the Europe has an incredible advantage at this point. No streaming video and semi high productivity! Hopefully for a very long time.