They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don't need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?
Neither the access nor the bundled content portions are really dying. The assumption they must be bought from the same vendor is, but outside of very high speed plans, internet access tends to have data caps (sometimes capped unless you buy a TV bundle from the ISP as well as internet service), and OTT services with comparable content are just as expensive as cable plans (and mostly from cable/satellite vendors, though Google and Sony have services too), so you end up spending the same money plus eating your data cap if you buy separately instead of getting the content outside of your cap (or maybe even getting the content and getting rid of your cap at the same time.)
Edit: To clarify, there are 3 tiers of GamePass. What you get depends on where you purchase and access from.
USA: only preseason live
GB, Mexico & maybe some others: regular season games live (no postseason)
Rest of the world: All games live + RedZone
Seems like they get paid a lot by existing corporate players for exclusive distribution rights in the states.
Didn’t realize the NFL games weren’t live tho. That would be a dealbreaker for me. The NHL and MLB games are live, but there are blackout restrictions. A VPN will get around that though.
"Piracy" still manages to offer a superior service even after all these years. It's amazing how copyright actively prevents people from properly competing with it.
Not really. Data caps are unnatural and are simply a method to fleece users, high bandwidth or not. Normal Internet plans have no caps.
The biggest problem I've found is that the cable company installed their cable modem on the entirely opposite side of the house from where the living room is (where the office is), and the wifi signal is too week to stream video. My general options are either a) get a repeater, or b) try setting up a second internet source from the living room cable (not sure if it's internet ready).
This is still 200 Mbps, better than the Wi-Fi the device could get.
200Mbps is their real PHY speed, 900Mbps is just a Scam
Thanks for the link, it is an impressive article and while I work in IT, the electronic may be a bit off my league (I just solder a bit around IoT devices and flash them).
I realized with your comment that I have never actually tested the plugs when they are next to each other (say, on an extender). I did not expect there would be a physical limitation below the advertized 1Gbps (I now all I got 400 Mbps I think but I am not at home to get that with a local iperf loop). If they cannot deliver close to that I would be pissed off :)
I have, again from memory, a 2x1Gbps tplink pair.
This said, my power cabling is sub par so this was the obvious reason for me for the lower bandwidth.
A cheap Ethernet cord would fix the problem. Move the router closer to the office.
Unless you live in a place without broadcast television, or little broadcast television, and with little to no internet service.
So pretty much 20% of the United States. The nation is much larger than the east and west coasts.
https://www.icip.iastate.edu/tables/population/urban-pct-sta...
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210...
And anecdotally, I know several people who live in urban places who still don't have access to cable television.
Back to the topic, though — the OP stated, "you literally don't need at all." My point is that his postulation is invalid for millions of people.
Cable internet plus OTT live TV service is probably more expensive in most markets than Cable internet plus Cable TV with equivalent channel lineup, you still have to deal with the cable provider, and the OTT TV counts against your internet data cap, if (as is likely without a same-provider TV plan or an extra payment for uncapped data) you have one.
Moreover, unless you're an extreme binge watcher, I'm guessing you could still consume more than you can eat of video entertainment for less money than the cable companies charge by buying DVDs. Let alone Netflix's DVD service.
In the economic sense of “need”, it isn't different at all.
Outside of the economic sense, generally “need” is meaningless unless qualified with a purpose.
> Moreover, unless you're an extreme binge watcher, I'm guessing you could still consume more than you can eat of video entertainment for less money than the cable companies charge by buying DVDs.
Buying DVDs is not effective for getting current news, sports, etc., however, whether direct coverage or timely commentary.
how? let's say you're on some expensive cable plan, $120/mo and DVDs cost $15. that works out to 8 movies a month, which might cut it if you only watch a couple of hours of TV on the weekends, but is nowhere enough if you watch daily.
DVDs are cheaper per hour if you get less-current movies or, even better, less-current TV collections (e.g., the Friends complete series is currently $70 on Amazon, for 80+ hours.)
So, if you are concerned merely with quantity of video content, it may be true that DVDs are cheaper than cable.
If you have concerns about the specific content, then the claim becomes harder to defend.
It depends on what you want to watch.
Later, satellite-carried "Superstations" were added like WPIX, WTBS, WGN, etc...
Later still, pay television services like HBO and Cinemax were added.
Even later, we ended up with what we have today.
I grew up in rural southeast US and I've always associated cable with cities/suburbs and had broadcast/satellite (old giant ones most until middle school).
My options for broadband are cable, or.... nothing.
I mean, I guess technically I can get DSL for $40 more a month than my whole cable bill for 1/10th the bandwidth.
It's certainly overpriced for what it is, but it's still much, much cheaper than a complete package, which is easily twice that figure.
...but between the so-called promotional pricing, the dicking around with another pile of box rental fees and assorted add-on costs, I just didn't have it in me. On some level I just decided that I would rather risk "missing out" on some minor bit of savings than buy anything more than the single thing I really needed to buy from Comcast.
If I had any other real options I wouldn't buy anything from them. But they are the only option for something I definitely need. I'm not about to pay them for anything more.
Cable providers literary make money by giving TV service for free. They sell pre programmed channel spots like supermarket sell shelf space - You cant change channel order :/ plus they track/sell TV viewing data
It's not like people have to rent cable boxes. By law, you can get an STB from Motorola or wherever, and a CableCARD for a nominal monthly fee (couple of dollars).
I think sometimes the psychological aspect of it isn't appreciated. The whole point of plopping down on the couch and turning on the TV is to decompress. It's great that streaming services allow you to choose what to watch when, but if you've been figuring things out and making decisions all day, that's what you want to get away from.
Traditional broadcast TV and cable keeps delivering something even if you do nothing. You can override it (by changing the channel or using the DVR), but you need only exercise as much control as you feel like at a given moment.
Even YouTube can serve this purpose if you get a decent set of subscriptions going and loads of TVs have this built in these days (even if you didn't really want it). For others, there's Chromecast or similar to put these things on the big screen if you don't have a computer or other "smart" device already hooked up.
I have read accounts from people who have said that they need to have some kind of coherent sound around them - radio, tv, other people talking, etc.
Their argument is usually that without that constant chatter, they would have to be left alone with the thoughts in their head, and they don't want that.
I find such a position utterly alien, as a person who enjoys quiet time, pondering and thinking about things. I can understand wanting to "shut it out" occasionally and just "veg-ing" - but the way these individuals talked, it sounded like anxiety and fear for them to be left alone with their thoughts.
A possibility I found both disturbing, and depressing.
- Access to a specified list of channels she likes
- Selecting content should be as easy as on basic cable: type in three numbers on the remote
That’s it. I’ve so far failed to find the replacement. If we were to cut cord today we’d still have to subscribe to multiple services to get the mix of content, each service with their own subscription and UI and menus to navigate. So alas we still hang on to basic cable.