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Comment by grillvogel | Hacker News Reader

if only there was a service that "bundled" all the "channels" you like into some sort of "package" and provided a unified interface to stream them all into your TV through a "cable" like device

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That'd be pretty amazing. I hope when someone does make that service, they don't then "inject ads every five minutes" like youtube does, don't turn streaming into "only at prespecified times" like those "theaters" and "cinemas" we hear about in history class, and don't start exploiting the fact that there is no real competition by doing things like charging for "bundled content" that you never opted in for while also not being able to opt out of.

> don't start exploiting the fact that there is no real competition by doing things like charging for "bundled content" that you never opted in for while also not being able to opt out of.

I mean this is basically what the OP is asking for

It is amusing that people have been complaining about not having a la carte cable for years, and suddenly the opposite complaint is surfacing about these streaming services.

I wouldn't mind having a cable package again if it weren't for all the ads. I'm simply not going to pay for a service for it to inject ads into my experience, and that includes cable television.

I'm not sure it's comparable. I wouldn't say TiVo was as convenient as streaming, the shows were at predefined times on different channels, it was harder for providers to track what shows got views from which customers, which I believe is why streaming services has been able to produce such high quality shows. They both have the benefit of not being reliant on advertisers, as well as tracking exactly what their paying customers mostly focus on and put money there.

Spotify pays whatever artists I listen to. If I buy a cable package I pay for a bunch of reality TV I have never watched.

It is almost as if the companies providing these services don't have the consumer's best interests at heart, and people sense that...

It's not legal, but per my comment above Kodi offers a pretty good solution via a Mi Box, Roku, Fire TV etc. Exodus has pretty much every show you could wish to watch on demand, and then there's (paid) IPTV services that you can access if you have to watch live TV. Again, it's not legal but it beats torrenting as you're never uploading any content, only consuming.

tivo+cable card is pretty close to this now - especially since they added the button to skip ads in recorded shows. It definitely could be better, but if your primary sources of video content are mostly cable/TV channels it is probably the best experience. Also it integrates netflix, hulu, vudu, amazon, and cable's on-demand into a single search (at least it seems to, I have not used hulu or vudu through my tivo). You tube is still a separate search though.

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