Well, social circles and taste are what they are, but this is certainly a long-tail situation.
If some entertainment for some people isn't fungible, then producers like HBO and ESPN will certainly have some sort of market capture. But their respective captures will probably overlap less and less as time goes on and interests diverge.
And that really doesn't detract from my point, which is that I don't require subsidized entertainment, and I believe fewer and fewer people do. Between that and the ever-increasing supply of top-notch entertainment, I don't see people affording relatively expensive cable packages, movie tickets, AAA games, and pay-per-view events as much.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about trends, not anecdotes, so there may be exceptions for certain periods of time, certain producers, and certain indrustries.
They do overlap less and less, and the big package model starts to seem less and less tenable.
That being said, it's still not fungible. I want to watch what my friends are watching - it's not at all the case that "any content will do". Maybe my group of friends watches Game of Thrones, maybe they only watch How I Met Your Mother, it doesn't matter.
Though one interesting thing that happened was the Netflix release of Breaking Bad saw a significant group of my friends suddenly watching it. If none of my friends have cable and everybody waits for the Netflix release, I will too.
If some entertainment for some people isn't fungible, then producers like HBO and ESPN will certainly have some sort of market capture. But their respective captures will probably overlap less and less as time goes on and interests diverge.
And that really doesn't detract from my point, which is that I don't require subsidized entertainment, and I believe fewer and fewer people do. Between that and the ever-increasing supply of top-notch entertainment, I don't see people affording relatively expensive cable packages, movie tickets, AAA games, and pay-per-view events as much.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about trends, not anecdotes, so there may be exceptions for certain periods of time, certain producers, and certain indrustries.