It's not necessarily true that HBO is leaving money on the table. It could be that having a streaming service is against some contract term they have with the cable companies, and having one would lose them $x per customer. That amount could be less than what they've determined they could make from streaming. In that case, while they aren't taking your money, they are still maximizing their income by doing so. It's the demand curve in play. If 200 people are willing to pay $50 for something, and 50 more people are only willing to pay $25, then it makes sense to sell it for $50, since that makes $10000, rather than $25 since that makes $6250. In the second case, more people enjoy it (all 250), but the company makes less money. I'd highly suspect this is wrong though, given what Valve has demonstrated with price levels and video games.