The /r/gameofthrones circlejerk over HBO not offering a standalone service is infuriating.

'But we like it, so we should get it for cheaper' is the default reddit opinion, and it is so infuriating.

No, you don't understand. If you charge less, people will buy more. Steam does it, therefore it will work in all industries and markets no matter what. In the end you'll end up making more money. Now, as a high schooler that has once listened to a Planet Money, I think I know everything about how economics works. /s

I think people don't seem to realize that cable/satellite services and HBO/Showtime/Starz/Cinemax have symbiotic relationship. The fact that the only way to get premium cable access is through the gatekeepers of Comcast and DirecTV is a huge boost of subscribers for the the cable providers(and probably the only thing keepign them where they are). I am willing to bet that if HBO offered HBO Go for everyone then there would be some serious falling out with their main revenue source (cable and satellite providers).

Obviously HBO wants to reach as many people as possible but it can't afford to damage it's business in doing so. In the coming years, as more people cut the cord and switch to services like Hulu, Amazon streaming, Netflix and iTunes, the larger content providers will follow suit. Once the tipping point is reached their will be greater access.

Not withstanding the above, it really would be nice if HBO could facilitate the movement of their television series to DVD/Bluray and legitimate downloading services quicker. It does suck to have to wait a whole year to be able to purchase the product. Lots of television shows are available on iTunes the day after airing. Why not have GoT available a week after the season conclusion? At that point I would think that their main viewership is finished so...

I love r/gameofthrones, no lie. It's the only /r/ where I don't mind a sea of image macros. I'll take any content, any time, no matter how banal, trivial, or peripherally related to the source material, so deep is my passion for A Song of Ice and Fire, but the fans I occupy the forum with are some of the most snot-nosed Verruca Salts I've ever shared e-space with. I almost posted in that thread today but thought better of it at the last minute. The piracy fight is not one that I'm in any position to win. I rarely receive downvotes, but when I do it's in r/gameofthrones for calling out pirates.

The point I was going to make but didn't is that even if HBO went the streaming only option (this will not happen for decades, probably) the people bitching about how they only pirate because they lack this option will still pirate! I have no doubt at all about that. Sure, having to pay 60+ for cable plus an HBO package is fairly costly, but even 15 bucks a month is costly when you're used to getting it for free. People just want to pretend that that's the reason they pirate, not because they just want it for free because that way HBO is the bad guy and not them.

I'm not going to necessarily criticize digital piracy, I think we can all admit that we've downloaded something, but stop pretending it's the other guy's fault!

More of the same jerking over in /r/technology

Although the top comments are seemingly more intelligent than the ones in r/GOT. Still there are some nice gems in there:

Things are changing soon, my buddy at HBO told me so

I'd gladly pay if I could! Piratebay FTW

I cancelled my cable because I'm so brave!

Well I believe HBO could make a good amount of money offering a standalone service with access to the same programming via PC, but for the same price as a subscription via cable or satellite. They are a business, but I think they would be smart to expand to PC/Mobile-only viewers. Just my own two cents.

(The below is what I like posting to such threads. u/Mutual understates the level of circlejerkiness; these threads pop up at least once a week, every single week, and recently have been even more frequent since the second season just ended. The only other subjects that are as repetitively bad are "Since I've watched season 1/2 of the show, can I start reading the books with the second/third one in the series?" and "DAE think that George R. R. Martin will be able to finish the last two books before the show catches up? I'm of course the first person in the history of the universe to ask this question.")

Don't you know? Watching Game of Thrones for free is a fundamental human right. It says so in the Constitution or something. Anyone and anything that prevents you from watching a show that HBO spends tens of million a year making is WORSE THAN HITLER.

(Sigh.)

91% of the United States subscribes to cable or satellite. Yeah, yeah, I know, r/cordcutting and all that, but this figure has not significantly changed in years. In other words, 91% of the country either a) subscribes to HBO or b) can pay $10-13 per month to add it to their existing package. Assuming you subscribe for three months, $3-4 per episode the day of availability does not seem very much to pay for a show that the network spent $60 million to make in 2010 and $70 million in 2011.

I like both r/gameofthrones and r/asoiaf (kraken knuckles explained in this thread why it's possible to actually like r/gameofthrones even more than r/asoiaf despite what people tend to say about the two), but r/gameofthrones has REALLY been stuck in the same circlejerks for a while now.

DAE think this actor/tress deserves an award?

Here's an image macro of a memorable scene in last night's episode. Let's all quote other lines in that episode!

Arya and Syrio Forel will eventually get married and become the king and queen of Westeros after cutting off Joffrey's head because they're the best characters in any story ever!

Hodor. It is known. You know nothing John Snow. Oh sweet summer child. A man such and suches.

And of course the accessibility issue that op has brought up. I agree that I'd love an easier way to get a hold of the show, but if you want to keep seeing new episodes of it, you're gonna have to deal with what HBO believes is the best way to fund it. A cheaper package means that HBO will have to sell exponentially more subscriptions in order to get the money they're hoping for, and that doesn't always work in practice.

No one's entitled to television ffs. Why are people so invested in "fixing" HBO's business model? Are they going to start demanding that Apple price its products according to a fixed Apple business model devised by its consumers, or that every game developer put their games on Steam for $19.99?

I just.. don't get it. Is this what we get after a century or so of modern advertising/consumerism, people so invested in entertainment that they form movements to gain access to it on their terms?

Ok, so this isn't from r/gameofthrones, but there was a thread in r/technology that actually had a few people explaining the situation well, and explaining thatHBO can't work the way it oes, offering high-concept and expensive dramas at a loss like it does if it went a la carte, and in response to one such explanation, this guy replies that HBO needs to rework its entire business models because he's "seen multiple professional webcomics and amateur rage comics on this subject alone" and then types out that Oatmeal comic that everyone uses to justify their piracy.

I've seen many, many armchair economists here on Reddit, but I think this is the firsst one I've seen to use r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu as his evidence.

"Shut up and take my-"

Shut the fuck up

While some of the posters clearly understand that HBO is a business that is (gasp!) out to make as much as possible, others are so ridiculously entitled that it legitimately upsets me. Look at me, I'm getting mad over something on the internet!

I see this kind of rhetoric popping up all throughout circlebroke and it I don't agree with it. Everyone and their dog realises that HBO's primary goal is to make money.

However what many of you don't realise is that it isn't unfair to make requests of a business to take a slight hit in their income to please and satisfy the wants of the consumer. Why? Because doing this can actually create more revenue down the track due to consumer loyalty, word of mouth and satisfying your consumers.

Just because you disagree with the specific thing Reddit is crying over doesn't invalidate the concept behind it.

A business model is a two-way street. The producers do their thing and the consumers do their thing. So many of you are acting like both should be totally seperate entities. But that isn't how it works. If a group of consumers get together and attempt to demand a new feature for the producers to provide - that's their right. That is a good thing. This is how the market progresses and things move forward. This does not make them entitled. If everyone just shut up about services they didn't like then we wouldn't have many of the wonderful things we have today.

This place is really going downhill in quality. It seems like every idea that gets popular on reddit is criticised here mindlessly. Anyone who attempts to defend said idea is met with disagreement downvoters and their opinion is stiffled. It's ironic because this subreddit was supposed to be about elevating ourselves from the nonsense that plagues Reddit - but it falls to all the same vices.

Does it anyone else the way people disingenuously respond to 'so you'll steal it?' by smugly pointing out the semantic difference, when they know full bloody well what point the commenter is trying to make (ie you're consuming the product for free)?

Anyway, did anyone link that fucking Oatmeal comic yet? The only drawing that can make me legitimately angry. Makes me want to just take all his comics and scrub his name off of them and then post 'em all over the internet. But I won't. Because I'm the bigger person.

Hmm. Not sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, yeah, that discussion ran the topic into the ground. On the other, come on, it's a group of Game of Thrones fans who want to watch their favourite show in a more convenient way than is currently available. What do you expect? 237 comments about how HBO is doing absolutely everything perfectly?

My jimmies are also slightly rustled by the idea that any conversation that takes place that may have a predictable outcome is a "circlejerk". "Circlejerk" implies everyone agreeing with one another with no exceptions. What I saw was an actual discussion about what fans want and what they may actually achieve. Yeah, a lot of people were saying "I'd happily pay an amount I can afford", but there were also people giving a more balanced point of view.

At the time of writing this comment, here are the top comment threads on that post are as follows (I sort by "Best"):

1. Just make sure you buy the physical release when it's eventually released.

2. "HBO Go will never be a standalone service without breaking contract with those companies."

3. "I think that the people who are best qualified to figure out what HBO should do are probably a group of businessman, statisticians, and economists that HBO has hired who have all the relevant data and are familiar with the exact benefits and drawbacks of the current business plan."

4. "hbo gets paid by the cable companies to not do stuff like this (in writing it would be worded more like "exclusive" or some shit). So this will probably never happen for a price that would seem fair to us."

The four best comment threads, each of which are more in line with your own views on the subject than some imaginary hivemind opinion. Now, I ask you, is this really a circlejerk?

Lost your credibility when you said you love r/gameofthrones. It's r/funny but with only one topic. What do you expect?