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Comment by clentaminator | Hacker News Reader

Aside from ads, freedom of choice with respect to just what you watch seem to be the other key motivator.

With the capability of streaming and on-demand services, why would any consumer put up with having to choose any channel with a fixed programming schedule? I almost certainly don't want to watch what you're trying to sell.

No other industry seems to operate in this manner. When it comes to books, games, music, etc, consumers choose specific products. With cable TV you don't get that granularity of choice. Netflix just brings the traditional TV model into alignment with seemingly everything else.

Anecdotally, cable prices seem to rise but the new channels that are sold to me as a benefit are the exact opposite of what I watch. More sports channels? Despite me having never tuned into a single one? If you're going to profile me, at least make an effort to do it well.

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2 points. I won't speak for myself, but from what I've gathered from friends:

1. A lot of people seem to like video ads. Movie ads specially tell you 'whats hot', and general ads put you 'in the loop' so to speak. I've tried to install ABV for a couple of people who won't let me because they actually like ads (as in youtube, not the shiny bright popups). This may be true for more people than HN crowd would assume.

2. One of the biggest problems I have with non-cable is that I need to think. When I'm with friends, we spend a very considerable amount of time trying to agree on what we want to watch, and often end up watching some stupid cute cat video because we couldn't decide. TV solves that. Perhaps if cable were referred to as 'a curated platform of best video content, being streaming 24/7', the conception would change?

>> Perhaps if cable were referred to as 'a curated platform of best video content, being streaming 24/7', the conception would change?

But the high quality content (when there is any) on cable ends up on extra channels that require you to pay more. IMHO TV was better OTA than on cable. You had a small number of local channels and they had to compete for eyeballs. Content was much better. Cable provides a way to shovel in every little crappy thing to satisfy everyone with something, and yet they still split out the best for extra money. Discovery channel split, even Disney split - which is why ratings dropped for Phinias and Ferb. Great show, but not enough pull for people to pay extra to get it, but they cancelled instead of moving it back.

> IMHO TV was better OTA than on cable. You had a small number of local channels and they had to compete for eyeballs.

OTA TV still exists and it's not bad. $15 for an antenna and I'm getting about 40 channels in Albuquerque.

Yeah... but then you have to live in Albuquerque... I don't know if good TV is worth THAT price. /s

But seriously...

I don't mind TV on a schedule SOMETIMES (Walking Dead for example was worth catching on Sunday Night... with the following Talking Dead.)

But a majority of the time, I'm doing this or that and want to catch something on my on time.

I'm not 100% against commercials, personally... but the extreme to which they went - both on TV and Online - has pushed me to be almost militantly AdBlock'ish.

If Netflix (and similar) can bring sanity back to it, all the better.

>> But a majority of the time, I'm doing this or that and want to catch something on my on time.

That's what a DVR is for. They don't actually make anything off the shelf for OTA in the US, but a bit of software and a DTV peripheral on a computer can provide this. I hear TiVo is still around, but not very popular.

TiVo is still around and handles OTA just fine, as I understand it. (I use mine with cable and never watch anything live.)

Number 2 is true and very frustrating. I'd like to have a Netflix channel option. Sci-fi channel, horror channel etc. Did you ever call up someone else and tell them to turn to a channel then share in the same experience?

One issue with this will be that so much media seems to be moving to very compelling stories, and you don't want to miss any. You used to be able to tune into the middle of a show without really missing anything.

But there are categories like that. A recent update to Roku made them easier to get to for those devices.

I believe crowd-sourcing 'what to watch' will drive you to the lowest common denominator (cat videos). Instead, we take turns choosing. And live with what the other guys choose because, well, that's called being social. Its not too awfully painful to watch a costume drama once in a while.

> 1. A lot of people seem to like video ads. Movie ads specially tell you 'whats hot', and general ads put you 'in the loop' so to speak. I've tried to install ABV for a couple of people who won't let me because they actually like ads (as in youtube, not the shiny bright popups). This may be true for more people than HN crowd would assume.

Don't care, let them get their trailers elsewhere. No more ads.

I don't think that ads as a way of finding things you may be interested in is necessarily bad, but it's certainly not the only way. If I want to find out what's current or upcoming in videogames I can go to Eurogamer, Polygon, Gematsu, or another site with that kind of focus. (Actually knowing which places are best for your interests and which should be filtered out is another issue, of course...)

If a random ad happens to be something I'm curious about then great, but I find that it's more often not.

2 is a fair point, though I wonder if your shared interests as friends (making assumptions here) couldn't guide your search?

Cable as 'a curated platform of best video content, being streaming 24/7' is interesting, but the current "best" just may not be someone's thing. Again I think it comes down to wanting to choose precisely what you watch, though I see your point that you don't always know (though if you don't know what you want to watch, maybe doing something else is the option?).

1. People like well targeted ads for their shopping intent.

2. YouTube autoplay and recommendations and subscriptions. And these days, youtube channels are even buying YouTube ads..

I've experienced #2, with Plex you can make playlists and shuffle through them though which I find mimics TV pretty well (without the ads).

#2 is also solved by netflix-roulette on the 'popular' row. It's actually pretty fun!

I love that Netflix by mail logistics pushed you away from popular content , but online caching servers push you toward poplar content!

what is abv? abp?

Don't forget that, as a non-sports-watcher, you get to pay a fee to subsidize all the sports channels you don't watch. It's not even the cost of the channels, per se... you get the extra "regional sports surcharge" on top of that.

At least Verizon FIOS in the Boston area lets you opt-out of all sports channels so you are not charged this fee.

Oddly enough, I recently moved to the Boston area (from NY) and I did not know this. I'll need to look into it. Nobody in my family has any interest in watching sports at all.

I imagine you're probably still subsidising the sports watchers though.

All of these companies use sports as a major buying motivator, like in the UK Sky basically went mad on buying every sport they could. I would assume the extra subscription alone doesn't cover the high licensing prices they pay, so they spread out the cost to all the other consumers too but just charge a bit extra to the sports fans.

I never knew about that, so thanks. This is a significant argument against the traditional cable model, at least for me.

Are there other genres (for want of a better term) where this applies?

It's around $6/month per subscriber - http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-...

Most push media work exactly like tv. Magazines and newspapers have ads in between the content and don't forget about radio that works exactly the same.

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