Link of the day: Why do Internet people think content people are stupid?

Such was the question that HDNet chairman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban asked recently on his blog. The gist of Cuban’s argument is as thus:

Now I dont know about you, but for HDNet and my other content companies, we tend to be very nice to those of our customers who pay us every month. Commentary from cable networks and their content producers are saying the same thing. They can’t afford to upset the people who pay the bills.

Which is exactly why, as I have said before, Jeff Bewkes, of Time Warner’s model of TV Everywhere is the EXACT RIGHT MODEL for content creators, cable networks, and video subscription providers like your local cable, telco or satellite provider.

Of course, when Cuban called out Boxee CEO Avner Ronen in the very first sentence of his blog entry, based on this article from Contentinople.com—which wins for having the most clever blog name I’ve read in a while—where Ronen said that viewers and consumers should have the freedom to pick and choose what movies and TV shows they want to watch, when they want to watch it, he couldn’t let it go, so Ronen responded in the comments to Cuban’s blog… and then helpfully reposted the entire exchange in his.

Personally, I stand on the side of the “stupid” Internet people, especially this paragraph of Ronen’s here:

The issue is not switches and hard-drives. The issue is the open nature of the Internet eco-system. The cable companies can come up with Tru2way, EBIF or any other catchy name, but as long as they decide what innovation gets through to the consumers’ screen it has FAIL written all over it. I guess they can try re-inventing the Internet. Good luck.