Corporate Censorship in the Future

For John, BLUF:  The fear is that corporate interests "with a social conscience" will limit the scope of available information.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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When Some Films Are Banned, Only Outlaws Will Have Banned Films

From Ricochet, by Mr Brian Watt, 16 May 2019.

Here is the lede:

The prerecorded disc market is about to disappear. At some point in the near future, UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and standard DVDs will no longer be sold by Amazon and other retailers because most content will be available for streaming in very high definition. As Jerry Del Colliano explains in his article “Netflix and Amazon are Killing Ultra HD Blu-ray and I Feel Fine” at Home Theater Review, Netflix and Amazon are leading the transition to eliminate the disc market because the economics of streaming content are so much more profitable than shipping a physical disc, even as it undercuts the traditional studio industry.

I love the convenience of Amazon and I love the ability to watch movies on demand, but Mr Watts points out the down side:

When the day comes that only a handful of major streaming services – Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and soon Disney and Apple and others that fund the creation of content and control the content that you are able to view — then some films and television series that are now or in the future considered politically incorrect will begin to disappear.

The thing that Gutenberg introduced was the ability to mass produce heresy.  Even typewriters and carbon papet worked, giving us Samizdat ("self-publishing"), like Doctor Zhivago In Russian.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff