1. It wasn’t movie producers as much as the studios / distribution companies that got caught flatfooted by the streaming services. Producers will sell their product anywhere they can get financing or distribution.

2. Both studios AND producers resisted the use of digital filming in HD for a long time as opposed to actual film which then had to be converted to digital. One could say there were quality issues with digital vs film. It came down to where do you want to spend your money.

3. The cable television industry had the opportunity to be in the streaming / on-demand business 40 years ago. And the system operators chose to build, at most, 54-channel copper wire systems instead of fiber systems, which would have given them much more bandwidth.

4. Long before DISH and DirecTV, there was a satellite distribution company, whose name escapes me, in the mid-80s. It had a golden opportunity because people were already disgusted with cable TV’s horrendous customer service and ready to cut the cord. Can’t remember why it didn’t make it. Ironically its president, the late Ron Castell, later went on to run Blockbuster Video for many years.

5. Speaking of Blockbuster, it also missed a golden opportunity because it could have delivered many other products besides videos to the customer base of homes it had already assembled, instead of making people come to the stores.

6. On the subject of migrating service manuals to the web… I worked for a company in the emergency management business whose user manual was ONLY on the web; did not yet exist in hard copy. So what happens if a first responder in the field can’t get connected to the internet, for whatever reason, and doesn’t have a manual that will spell out the alternatives? Always good to have backup…