The innovative solutions technology and finance have birthed in recent years primarily work to upend the old ways of doing things. Two of the most direct challengers to the status quo—the way we traditionally engage with television and money—are Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and Bitcoin, a decentralized form of digital currency. IPTV serves as a direct competitor to cable and satellite television and offers many advantages over those more established forms of content delivery. By contrast, Bitcoin’s edge over traditional financial transaction methods is more pronounced and direct; it exists in clear defiance of the banking system. Both developments offer us a chance to understand the currents of innovation powering their respective industries, but together, IPTV and Bitcoin also pose intriguing questions to anyone still mostly interested in the “good old days.”
Television content can be delivered over the internet—that’s what IPTV means. And it can be delivered live, or as video-on-demand, or even in the form of interactive multimedia content. That’s what makes IPTV something we really need to talk about as a contemporary vehicle for television distribution. It’s not just yet another internet-based alternative to cable. It’s a precarious balance of content delivered via one’s internet connection, at a cost that can, in many cases, be lower than that of conventional cable packages, with a service offering that can be enjoyed across a multitude of devices.
Introduced in 2009 by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. It enables people to make direct electronic payments over the Internet without intermediaries like banks. Peer-to-peer payment systems aren’t new. What makes Bitcoin different—and potentially revolutionary—is its underlying technology. Bitcoin is not only a currency; it is an idea with disruptive potential. It promises a more convenient, secure, and private way to pay. Its appeal for those tired of the ‘trust us’ culture of banks and the ‘surveillance capitalism’ of free online services is that it could make payment systems that are powered by something other than trust.
IPTV and Bitcoin create a one-of-a-kind opportunity for unique customer bases. On the one hand, the service providers who use IPTV can cater to an expanding customer base that prefers using cryptocurrency. Once a predominantly under-serviced sector of the market, users of digital asset transacting have become a fast-growing demographic. On the other hand, providers of IPTV can tap into the use of Bitcoin as a way to transact business securely, using a payment option that offers more safety and privacy than the credit card-sized payment path their customers are currently limited to.
For example, people living in countries where censorship is common find it quite tough to access popular streaming services. However, these same folks can use Bitcoin to pay for services like IPTV without having to worry about the red tape or personal information that come with conventional payment methods. IPTV consumption via Bitcoin not only provides the user with greater payment method freedom but also aligns with the kind of ethos that both cryptocurrencies and IPTV have going for them—an ethos of content consumption without limits. Still, there are a couple of challenges that this setup has to overcome.
A major worry is that Bitcoin’s value is too fickle and, as a result, too unpredictable to use as a basis for setting subscription prices. On the other side of the equation, what if IPTV providers and their subscribers just can’t use the cryptocurrency to reliably and legally buy services? Navigating the regulatory morass that cryptocurrencies present is a major job for IPTV providers. Even if IPTV goes fully legit and doesn’t present opportunities for rental or illicit download payoffs, can it afford, in terms of ethically earned Bitcoin, to operate on the level of business that earns it enough, well, legit Bitcoin to cover its own costs?
How we watch television and how we use money are colliding in a profound and interesting way. Two emergent technologies—internet protocol television and Bitcoin—are coming together in a kind of perfect storm. Both are in their infancy but promise to transform the industries they touch: IPTV the media-consumption sector and Bitcoin the financial world. When we consider these two promises together, we begin to see something that looks like a real opportunity for the companies that provide us these services and for the viewers and virtual money spenders themselves.