Why “House of Cards” could signal the decline of cable television

Columbia professor Tim Wu, writing for The New Yorker:

That doesn’t mean the cable industry has no prospects. But this year or next, cable companies will have to accept that they are no longer the gatekeepers for the best content. It means, eventually, that the industry will probably have to embrace the idea of simply carrying the content of others (which was its original business model), and essentially function as what used to be called an “Internet-service provider.”

Wu is a very smart guy, and his points about the potential impact of House of Cards are argued well. But I’m not as optimistic that the ‘best content’ will move as rapidly away from cable as he predicts.