It goes without saying that broadband is an unstoppable game-changer in the world of media distribution. We’ve gone from a vilified Napster to the legitimacy of XBOX Live.
Living in the South Korea, the country with the world’s fastest broadband, has really opened my eyes to the gravity of the broadband’s coming influence. You can think of Asia and North America as alternate futures in the story of Big Media vs Broadband.
Since the internet is so fast here — at least 5-10x faster to download music and movies — it’s painfully easy to consume media without batting an eyelash or thinking about payment. Sites that provide links to streaming media (SurfTheChannel is a hit with expats) are extremely popular since they give you access to North American TV shows, so you never have to miss an episode even if you’re halfway around the world. On the other hand, Hulu, NBC’s answer to YouTube piracy, is inaccessible anywhere outside the United States.
In Asia, Broadband wins…along with rampant consumer piracy. As I teach English to South Korean youth, I’m given insights to a generation that seems like it was born with WiFi capability. Whenever I ask about a popular song or band, the kids tell me that I should go on the internet and download their albums. Whenever a movie comes up in a lesson, they tell me that they downloaded that movie or watched it streaming online. There is no resistance or moral hesitation to consuming online media without payment. The kids do it as a reflex, a completely natural instinct.
However, media companies in South Korea have adjusted. Cellphone ringtones make almost as much money as CDs. Kids will use media however they want to and the companies have deftly acted to offset the losses.
Having a chance to live in South Korea has given me a glimpse of what awaits North American technology culture. Cellphone ownership in urban areas is virtually total and in-car GPS systems double as televisions.
Big Media should keep a close eye on how South Korean media has diversified. They can redirect their sinking ship — the hope of reviving CD sales — to a win-win opportunity. They diversify income streams, and we can all go back to liking the music industry.
As long as they don’t try to resurrect boy bands.
November 24, 2008 on 4:31 pm
I fully agree, the mistake of big media is to attack wether they should compose with… This is gulliver’s story few giants tied by armies of lillipputians. Lilliputian has come.
March 22, 2009 on 10:20 pm
It’s also worth mentioning that pirated DVDs are sold on nearly every street corner in Korea.
Korea’s broadband is definitely no joke. I remember downloading something and seeing the speed shoot over 8mb/s and thought “holy shit.” Korean internet is ahead of the rest of Asia though, so you can’t really generalize.
As for seeing the future, markets have a funny way of not turning out how you thought. When I first started going to Japan 10 years ago and saw all the tech gadgets I thought “wow, this is what the US will be like in 3 years.” And then it never came to pass. Mini-discs caught on in Japan, but didn’t here. The US also took a very different path in cell phone technology opting for big, clunky more computer like smart-phones.
There are also infrastructural challenges as well. Countries like South Korea and Singapore have advantages of being smaller countries and building most of their infrastructure further along in the development of the tech/internet era. It’s much easier for them to build a cohesive, highly interconnected structure. The US has a massive challenge in updating antiquated phone/cable infrastructure to get consistent broadband speeds that can compete with Korea.
March 22, 2009 on 11:11 pm
No kidding about the rampant piracy here. It’s bizarre being able to get 3 DVDs for $5 (even more if you’re a regular customer).
Great point about all the tech and gagdetry — nearly all the phones here are touchscreen. I was looking for a phone with a qwerty keyboard and most stores didn’t have one.
The point I was trying to make is that unlike electronics, the internet is universal. Having net access is almost “marketless”…you can’t really set a region code on the web and it comes in every language.
An addiction to touchscreen phones here may not translate into similar tastes for North Americans. I can totally see that preference being country-specific. And everyone in the world is tied together by one common trait: we’re lazy. If NA broadband ever gets to the speed it does here (and I hope it does, because it’s awesome) …all kinds of new problems are going to surface, and it’s going to be very interesting.
October 5, 2009 on 1:30 pm
I fully agree, the mistake of big media is to attack wether they should compose with… This is gulliver’s story few giants tied by armies of lillipputians. Lilliputian has come.