TV isn't about technology

MG Siegler puts it well:

Where’s the future of television we’ve been promised every year for the past decade? It always seems to be coming “next year”. And I have a hunch that 2014 may be no different.

Here’s the thing: there isn’t actually a technology problem in this space. That is, while the current solutions offered by the cable providers mainly suck, they suck because they can suck. Big Cable is holding all the cards. And they know it.

The mistake is to treat television as a technology problem because the visible failures are technological: ugly boxes, clumsy guides, bad remotes and slow software. Those are real annoyances. They are also symptoms.

The deeper issue is control. If Big Cable holds the cards, a better interface can only tidy up the edges. It cannot fix the incentives underneath. The remote is just where the problem happens to show up.