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Comment by t34543 | Hacker News Reader

TV is rubbish these days. Not only the last mile delivery but all the content is so watered down it will rot your brain.

My two favorite networks Discovery and the History channel are dead.

I cut the cord in 2008 over shady billing practices from Comcast. I pay Xfinity for internet because I have to. Never again will I pay for TV.

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It's stunning how difficult it is to watch Cable TV after watching streaming services for a while.

It's hard to believe there was a time that people consumed this many commercials, and didn't think anything of it.

There might actually be more commercials now than in the past. I remember hearing that TV shows were being sped up by ~10% or so, and that allows for additional time for ads.

I also think that ads are one of those things that you accept until having experienced an ad-free alternative.

Yep, some shows are sped up: https://lifehacker.com/network-television-stations-speed-up-...

We have Spectrum's stream-only service (using the Apple TV). Overall, it's been decent for local channels and a few "premium" channels -- at least for the price we pay (all local channels, 10 premium channels and HBO/Showtime for $15/month).

I agree that the format is stale, but for some, it's a good form of "background noise"; my wife loves to have the TV on even if she isn't watching it, while reading, studying, etc.

There's also no other real choice if you want live content (primarily for sports). You still need access to your local affiliate channels to watch this content, and for some, an antenna is not good enough or even an option at all.

I'm fine with paying for TV that I actually want to watch, but I refuse to pay for anything that contains ads, nor will I usually even consider watching anything with ads even if it's free.

Maybe some occasional youtube here and there, but certainly nothing like the the typical 20 minutes of ads in every hour of programming commonly found on broadcast TV and most cable channels.

You’re pretty much inline with my timeline. I use an OTA arial for terrestrial TV nowadays and only do internet with Comcast. Internet has no fees with it and OTA digital is a much better picture than compressed cable local channels.

I cut the cord in 2008 over shady billing practices from Comcast. I pay Xfinity for internet

So Xfinity's billing practices are okay?

I love Cable TV. I think it's all great. Never been better in fact. I love the variety of offerings and how approachable it all is.

What do either of our opinions have to do with this article?

Could be that the decline in quality of the available content has caused people to seek other sources?

I find it super frustrating that you were downvoted for expressing your (valid) opinion and questioning what the tangent had to do with the post in question. While everyone else that complained about cable was upvoted. There's a lot of people that, while they do have issues with it, enjoy their cable. You're not alone in your opinion. You are not, however, part of the hive mind; so you get down voted. I'm sorry for that.

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