that article is interesting going back to the 70s era American car comparison and now the 2020s ear American cars you can again see the issue
the media companies are like car companies telling their dealers (cable and SAT MSOs) that they are not providing the manufacturers with any "ideas" for what to do to make their shitty cars (shitty content) that they insist on building and selling sell better......and the dealers are like "stop selling shit people do not want"......you are offering an $85,000 Dually with a crew cab, diesel engine (that is not reliable), a 22" screen in the dash, leather seats, and a 6' bed as a "work truck"......people want a reliable diesel with durable seats in perhaps a crew cab or extended cab with a 8' bed and they do not need an entertainment center......the 8' bed is on the half ton, single cab, stripped down truck with a gas V8.....or a compact truck for only $2,500 less than a half ton, 2 turbo 4cyl, with a crew cab and a tiny bed loaded to the max with crap......when they want a compact tuck with a gas V6, decent bed, and extended cab and not full of crap.....or they have a 3/4 ton that hauls too little, too little payload, an unreliable engine, and the beds are configured wrong for the cabs in terms of use and they are designed to be lived in (and cost as much as a house in the 80s)
or they are getting rid of reliable 2 and 4 door cars because they cannot make massive money selling them and letting the foreign companies take that market completely
if you call the Big 3 the "content companies" and dealers the cable/SAT companies in the 70s there were multiple brands of "content" (shitty car brands) that were mostly the same and that had massive overhead of people trying to figure out how to sell a Chevy Monte Carlo vs. a Buick Regal vs. an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.....(much less Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth....or quick name one Mercury car model besides the Marquis) when they were all the same turds with different polish and for some reason different engines......that is similar to now with all the various 478 channels of bullshit that you cannot find one thing you want to watch for 12 hours out of the day because it is all so shitty offered by 4 or 5 major media companies
dealers did not give a fuck because they had local protected markets and no "internet" to shop prices and only a few places had a dealer in Floydada or Hempstead that was outside of town with a low cost of operation and close enough to sell for a low fixed price with a few "take it or leave it" salesmen and yet close enough to larger markets to bring the buyers out to them.....and they made a shit load on repairing junk in and out of warranty.....that is like cable and SAT companies of old.....you had one cable company in most places or DISH and Direct TV when they showed up to choose from.....and since they were all offering the same bullshit content negotiated at the same price where they had to carry all the bullshit channels none of them really cared about trying to really be competitive......it was a competition of "how shitty can our customer service be and our billing bullshit be before people cancel and go the the next one to get fucked"....or "fuck the customers we have now lets offer incentives to get new ones and the ones we have now can switch when their contract runs out"....sort of like fuck you that car is still not paid off yet eat a dick
so it was partially like cable now with bloated shit, but things are changing.....just like with cars there is now "internet" comparison shopping (steaming) and more competition in general and car companies are now talking about selling some of their cars (EVs) direct to consumers and there are EV companies selling direct to consumers or with very limited dealers......and all the major dealer groups for the Big 3 are pissed off about being under cut, getting lower warranty work rates for ever shittier cars with all kinds of electrical bullshit that disables a car in an instant and no training and support on EVs.....much less shitty over priced products no one wants.......similar to media companies now trying to "go direct" with streaming and especially cutting out the SAT companies, but at the same time also leaving cable companies with expensive legacy TV systems to pay for and wanting them to just sell low cost internet so that the media companies can over charge for their channels of shit no one wants
in the past when cable systems were smaller they had less leverage, but media companies were also smaller.....now they have both gobbled up the market, failed to adjust, colluded for a while to over charge for shit people did not want and now they are finally fighting over which one is going to get fucked in the relationship as the one (media companies/car builders) triy to offer the most useless shit for the highest price or which one can control the last mile access to the consumer (the car dealer or cable/SAT companies)
and then there are the smaller players.....the streamers that are like the foreign car companies coming in that forced shitty products to get better.......and then other forms of internet like over builders. 5G, Starlink that are similar to EV companies trying to sell direct to consumer
and the same yesteryear fucks are not sure how to compete with them either.....offer out own shitty product.....make out own shitty content......try and bundle the shit we over charge for on cable/SAT and sell it for a little less and who cares how it gets to the consumer
it is what happens when shitty companies work with other shitty companies and think they have the market controlled until they both realize others are finally doing something and then their answer is to try and fuck each other before they correct their mistakes because their past performance in a monopoly/near monopoly market could not possibly be a fluke and people really want what they are offering if they could just get the other shitty companies they deal with to accept that and raise prices more while consumers flee to other options with abandon