Internet TV vs. cable battle of words ends in a draw

Mark Cuban, who founded Broadcast.com and HDNet, remains one of the more colorful personalities in the tech world he once inhabited before striking it rich when he sold Broadcast.com for a boatload of money. Recently, he's become more focused on his basketball team (he owns the Dallas Mavericks) and in investing his cash to increase his substantial bottom line. Throw in with the tech entrepreneurs who are looking to innovate in the online video world now and collect paydays later? Uh, not so much. He's operating on a different plane.

That's why his comments during his appearance at SXSW with Boxeee founder and CEO Avner Ronen really aren't very surprising.

"If you think the Internet is going to replace cable, you're crazy!" he said at one point. Telling another audience member who had cut the cord because he didn't want to be "screwed by the man," that "The man's always going to screw you, dude."

Cuban is a firm believer in cable as the message and as the medium, saying its ability to deliver content is unparalleled and that its walled garden approach and subscription buy in is the best way to guarantee cash flow. Cuban has been railing against online video for a couple of years. He counts YouTube as a lost cause because it's not a big money maker, and says the stumbling block for broadband video delivery is quixotic expectations for QoS because of bandwidth limitations.

Avner, meanwhile, says he believes a "generational shift" away from cable TV and its pay walls will make the difference, pushing services like Boxee to the forefront.

For more:
- see this IFC.com article

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