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Comment by listenallyall | Hacker News Reader

Always assuming every single thing can be improved - and expecting huge corporate entities to do it - seems like a recipe for failed expectations.

Cable TV wasn't perfect, of course, but it was pretty damn good, especially in allowing everybody to have access to just about every show that was produced.

That the "replacement" model is disappointing and a worse experience, really shouldn't come as a surprise.

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It's interesting to hear your perspective, but I totally disagree about Cable TV. It's the worst paid service I've ever seen. 100+ channels of almost pure garbage that insults my intelligence at every turn. 1/3 of the time was ads, and of the remaining 2/3, much was taken up by "when we return..." and "before the break...". Plus most of the content was targeted towards morons.

These days, you'd have to pay me $20+ per hour to watch cable TV.

I did have basic cable for a few years in the early 2000s, and I did enjoy watching Star Trek TNG reruns. Because there wasn't any good alternative back then in the dark ages.

Modern streaming is the same thing, except it's hidden under the illusion of choice.

Many of the most popular streaming shows were originally aired on broadcast TV (which most people watched via cable) - The Office, Friends, West Wing, Big Bang Theory, etc. Or originally for cable channels - Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Suits, etc.

Netflix has produced a few decent shows but most of its stuff is "targeted towards morons" or "pure garbage that insults my intelligence" - Love is Blind, Is it Cake.

Commercials arent great but they are passive - easy to ignore. Much rather have a 3-minute commercials break where I can go to the bathroom or check my phone than having to actively scroll for 90 seconds switching from app to app and navigating their awful interfaces to get back to the show I was watching the other day.

But that's just me - glad you like our new television overlords, they certainly love anyone bashing cable tv!

You do know that people outside America had to buy very expensive DVD box sets to watch those shows?

Wait, hold on, are you telling me that the Pirate Bay only existed on the American Internet back then, too? Man, I'm so glad we're not in those times anymore.

That doesn't seem like an apples-to-apples comparison. There is a lot of junk on the broadcast and cable channels as well.

I expect there to be more aggregate junk on Netflix just because there is no floor: networks have only 168 hours a week to fill, while Netflix can throw anything at all on the pile.

But it doesn't matter, since unlike the networks, they're all available at once. If something insults your intelligence, you don't watch it.

His primary dislike for cable television was the amount of "garbage" it offered, while seemingly ignoring that Netflix also has plenty, if not more.

> But it doesn't matter... they're all available at once

I'm sorry but streaming everything is not a panacea. The spigot of worthwhile content is not endless. Ok great you binge-watched the entire season of Stranger Things over two nights. What will you watch tomorrow? And the day after? How much of the show do you actually remember? You lose out on the fun of discussing each individual episode with like-minded people, the wondering about how the next episode will resolve the last episodes drama, maybe watching an episode a second time and catching some additional detail.

I can assure you that watching great television - Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Larry Sanders Show, Homicide: Life on the Street - one episode per week is vastly superior to binge-watching it, even if it feels inconvenient in the moment. (Of course this is with the convenience of DVR so you can time-shift occasionally)

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