I pay my taxes, so let me watch YouTube in peace

About five years ago I stopped watching public and commercial television. We still had our cable connection but I just could no longer stand the garbage it delivered to our home. Either the quality of television had become worse or my tastes had changed, either way I stopped watching. Less than a year later we cut the cord completely and cancelled our cable subscription. We switched to Internet content completely. A Mac mini was bought, connected to our television and the mouse and keyboard became our remote. The bliss of self chosen TV content was ours.

Over the years the content became better and better. Video podcasts became more professionally produced - thanks to the efforts of such people as Leo Laporte and the guys and gals at Revision 3 - and YouTube came of age with better video quality and better content.

Much of the content on YouTube these days is contested as being illegal. Many a BBC programme or other public television content has been 'archived' at YouTube much to the chagrin of those that originally aired them.

However I feel justified to watch these programmes. Why? Because I pay my taxes. In the old days the situation in the Netherlands was such that one paid a fee as soon as one had a TV or radio in the house. This fee was used to finance public television and radio. In 2000 this fee was abolished and incorporated into the income tax. Income tax was raised by one point something percent and thus everyone pays that fee. Whether you watch public television or not. This used to be a fine system because everyone has a TV and/or radio and everyone used to watch public TV or listened to public radio.

But the situation has changed and our household is an example of the forerunners of that change (I'm tempted to shout 'Viva la revolucion!' but it is 4 AM so I'd better not...). We no longer watch public TV or listen to public radio. We can't because there is no longer a cable in our house delivering that content and picking up the stuff out of the ether is ancient history. So we watch public content - and yes BBC programmes were syndicated to our public broadcast channels - through YouTube and I feel no guilt doing so as I pay my taxes and thus pay into the public broadcast system of which I make no use.

I think this system should be more widely implemented. Instead of fighting illegal downloads, would it be an idea to embrace them. Charge a nominal fee for instance - either through taxes or otherwise - that reflects the content public television airs, i.e. feature films, syndicated programmes and bilge like the bloody X-factor and let people choose their own poison through channels such as YouTube or other Internet tubes (like Bittorrent or Usenet). In effect: illegal downloading would no longer exist, it'd be paid for. Those that do not watch Internet TV or do not listen to Internet audio content can go cry in a corner: I paid for all the filth they watched ever since I cut the cord with public broadcasting, now let them suffer for a while.

Google TV and Apple TV: how the living room was won

At the IFA trade show Google's CEO Eric Schmidt announced that Google TV will be launched this fall. Only in the US at first but the world will follow next year. Apple announced similar plans at an event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on 1 September.

This means both Google and Apple have thrown down the gauntlet and are now challenging the big TV networks. At first the adoption of TV through the Internet may be modest. It will mean connecting yet another device to your TV that connects to the Internet. In Apple's case this is the Apple TV and in case of Google this will probably be any computer where you can run a browser on. Many people may not be ready to surf the Internet from their lazy chair and change their TV viewing habits yet. Although the Apple TV provides a nice interface with an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad, that lets these devices stream content to the Apple TV and thus to your big screen.

Yet there may be a quicker adoption of this technology than one might think. Don't forget that YouTube outperforms many big networks when it comes to prime time viewer numbers. Transporting YouTube to the living room TV may transport with it an instant audience of 2 billion a day.

This is good news for both Google and Apple. Bad news for the networks. But lets face it, when YouTube with its piano playing cats, hyperactive teenagers and snippets of prime time TV manages to outperform the major networks, the major networks have only themselves to blame! Instead of fighting the Internet as the evil land of free for all they should have embraced it. Cuddled it and snuggled up to it. Made love to it and finally made it their own. Then they would have had a big say in what happens with the bits and bytes that travel from the handy cams to the TV screens. Instead they persisted in opposing it when parts of their shows turned up on YouTube. They gave it the stink eye the rest of the time, partly by incorporating it in their web sites in the most bungling, user unfriendly ways they could think of.

Now the big TV networks are left with a bruised pride and a lot of skittish viewers who are as used to watching TV on their laptops, iPads and media centres as they are on their networks. YouTube et al will become just another channel to watch in the eyes of many viewers. And considering the quality of programming of many channels, that piano playing cat doesn't even stand out.

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