When will the online video inflection point be reached, and what will happen to leading incumbents, especially video service providers? Some might argue an inflection point has been reached, or will be reached in 2013. We’ll have to wait and see, and that seems premature.

An inflection point probably cannot be proclaimed just on the basis of traffic, views or other forms of activity, though that obviously will prove vital over the longer term. The real inflection point will be in the revenue area: how people pay for content will define the tipping point or inflection point.

And, as always, what matters is content. All the debates about whether “content is king,” “context is king” or “distribution is king” are somewhat contextual. At any given time in industry history, one of those values will tend to dominate.

Over the long term, content is king. Ask yourself whether the important, essential element in a content experience is whether that content arrives by satellite, over the air, a cable network, a telco network or the Internet, or whether you can get the content you want to watch. You know the answer. Everybody does.

It matters what that access costs. It matters how convenient the access is, or where and on what devices you can get access. But the content business all revolves around the attractiveness of the content.

And that provides one clue about a future business context where video content is not “primarily” delivered in the form of whole packages of full channels featuring lots of different content and interest niches.

The conventional wisdom (which isn’t always wrong) suggests new Internet-based providers such as Netflix will gain, while traditional incumbents lose customers, revenue and market share. That is a reasonable view.

But the magnitude of the revenue change might be less than expected, in net terms, as it also is logical to expect ISP revenues to grow as demand shifts to online-delivered video.

Does anybody really believe Comcast (News - Alert), Verizon and others will not have the same rights to sell online content on the same basic set of terms and conditions as Netflix, Amazon Prime and other online providers?

Might gross revenue be less than what service providers earn today? It is possible. Some might say it is probable. But the point is that, at least for cable operators, broadband now drives growth. Video revenue is shrinking and new forms of distribution will allow cable operators to sell more pricy broadband packages.

So online video distribution will be disruptive, but it will be possibly less disruptive than many now believe.