Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

Despite how many people on this site and sites like it don't have some kind of cable or satellite service... we're a pretty small minority. Especially when it comes to the group of people interested in watching sports, where live is king, and the online options suck unless you live out of your teams' TV markets. I'm not surprised they're not going out of their way to cater to us.

For all the "the model no longer works" comments: what's the proof? The number of people I know complaining about the model is dwarfed by the number of people I know who have cable and have been watching stuff on both TV and online all day long.

I've seen a lot of legitimate complaints about how they're handling the time shifting stuff (which, surprisingly to me, has mostly been along the lines of "it's too easy to find out what happened" instead of complaining about the time shifting in the first place), but I don't see a big hole in their delivery system. They don't want to give people less reason to have cable -- and for all the money they could possibly make broadcasting the Olympics for-pay to non-cable subscribers, that's just a couple weeks every couple of years. The real win for them is if you still want to maintain a cable subscription.

It's a small minority, but it's growing: http://www.businessinsider.com/uh-oh-new-nielsen-data-says-p...

More and more people no longer channel surf, and more and more people no longer watch tv (even if they have it) even at a rate of once per month. Increasingly people are watching other content or consuming tv content differently (through netflix, for example). And just as the trend of going without a landline telephone started with the younger, more tech savvy folks and spread from there so has the trend of going without traditional cable tv.

The writing is on the wall. It will likely be a good while before the decline in subscriptions makes a big impact, but it's very much on the horizon, and the networks and the cable companies ignore it at their peril.

Things are in transition, and it is going to be a slow grind. Why would you expect cable companies to start acting before they have to? They're still making plenty o' money on the 'old' model.

They won't change until the absolute last second, if even then.

I'm hoping Google Fiber will force their hand, or put them out of business entirely.

Apparently someone disagrees with me enough to downvote, but is too stupid to actually explain why.

Here's the way I view it. If any industry or business can be potentially disrupted by a tech company in the next decade or two, they will. I think to bet otherwise is naive. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all currently entrenched interests are going to go away, obviously not, but most of them are going to end up in a fight for their lives at some point, and many of them will end up losing.

So many businesses today are profitable because they have a monopoly or oligopoly on some aspect of a supply chain. The onset of ubiquitous computing, network connectivity, automated manufacturing (3D printing et al), and so forth will disintermediate damned near everyone. A lot of those intermediaries have become fat, lazy, and myopic due to how easy it has been to hold onto their business up until now, for the most part they won't know what hit them until it's far too late to do anything about it.

That's the problem, the last second is too late. The time to change is before the competition has built up momentum. If you wait until big shifts in marketshare are taking place then you will not have enough time to respond. It's a matter of acceleration and momentum, if you wait until the brick wall is right in front of you it won't be possible to generate enough acceleration to change momentum fast enough to avoid hitting it.

This is especially true in the case of big companies that are much less agile than their competition. The traditional tv companies are facing a very similar fate as the newspapers, they just don't know it yet.

Exactly. I just find this whole view ridiculous. The whole "cable is evil, I would never have that" or all the "cord cutter" stuff is just on a spectrum that ranges from sensationalism to Adbuster level hysteria against "the Man." It's like this weird, vague, sort-of-reverse-Luddite situation.

Just an FYI, I pay for nhl.com, nfl.com and nba.com live video feeds for the seasons. It is TOTALLY worth it, cheaper and easier than DirecTV or cable. My total bill for the year is about $250 for all three sports. Sports was the only reason I still had cable/satellite a while back. No need anymore, and a better product.

Just as a comparison, NFL Sunday Ticket Max on DirecTV is $299 for the season. Standard Sunday Ticket is $199. No brainer.

What is the direct link to subscribe to NFL live video feeds?

NBA League Pass is $170… NFL, Season Rewind alone is $70, NHL's GameCenter Live pass is $170… How are you paying $250/yr for all three?

NHL - https://gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/secure/vaultsignup?cmpid=vl... $5/month = $60/year

NBA - http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe $5/month = $60/year

NFL - http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe from $110/year, $130 or $200/year (depends on what you want)

So, range for the three would be $230/year, $250 or $320/year. I went for the season pass in NFL, so $250/year.

I wouldn't mind the requirement to have cable so much if that was all it was.

I have cable, but my cable provider does not offer a package with MSNBC so I'm out of luck.

We haven't had TV for three years now, and don't miss it at all.

Funnily enough we dumped it because at the time Desperate Housewives was a season behind the US, and by the time we'd get to see it the ending was already spoilt.

We've only this year got Breaking Bad.

Instead it's a subscription to an NNTP provider. High quality, we can choose where and when we watch, and we don't have to wait for some high authority to decide if/when we get to see it.

NNTP? for TV? Is this legal?

Of course not. But if You were running a company selling a product, and there were large groups of people that wanted to pay you for this product, but you refused to offer them a manner to do so, would you be surprised that they go and "steal" it from somewhere easily accessible? I don't claim piracy is "right", but it certainly isn't unreasonable.

It's brought about through market failure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure

Yes, in The Netherlands it's perfectly legal. We have to pay a considerable fee for our blank media (it's twice UK price) but in return downloads are accepted.

That's why NNTP "sharing" is so popular here.

IMO, they can easily give people an online only option and still make more money. 500$ for the entire Olympics seamed to any device for the next 2 years. Bean counters say that's not enough, fine 1000$ or whatever, but there is nothing for NBC to gain from not even having the option.

PS: Then again I have cable and I have yet to watch any of the Olympics this year, but I assume some people care.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com