It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world?” said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, in an interview last week. “I don’t think so.” – From “Time Warner Views Netflix as a Fading Star,” New York Times, 2010.
Time Warner, it should be noted, no longer exists as an independent company. Netflix, on the other hand, has a market capitalization of over $100 billion. And whatever one thinks of the Albanian army, broadcast and cable industry giants have learned the hard way not to underestimate the disruptive power of giving customers the freedom to purchase a commodity (in this case, video content) when, where and how they want.