
Cutting the cord - joubert
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21702177-television-last-having-its-digital-revolution-moment-cutting-cord
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LittleSpider
As we old cable types know, this has been coming for some time. Just as
hardline phones have not gone away rapidly (the ability to have both parties
talking at the same time is still a convenience for some people, that cell
phones can't emulate yet), cable tv has a convenience factor that some people
simply like.

And with that cable-cord-cutter attrition rate of 1%, that seems to me to be
about the death rate of the human population in countries with cable tv (if we
live to be an average of ninety, then 1.1% are dying each year), perhaps cord-
cutting is somewhat of a generational thing?

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melling
How long did it take for landlines to go away? i got rid of mine 16 years ago.
Several years ago i cut cable but i gave in a few years ago and reconnected
because people wanted to watch sports.

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LittleSpider
It's been a slow burn with landlines, just like with cable. There was a bit of
a growth in landlines in the late 90s and early 2000s when internet usage with
dial-up modems was a growing product, and before cable modems and wireless
data really took off. after that, though, second-line usage rolled off
appreciably as some people converted to cell-phone only, and cord-cutters
(phone version) started to eat away at the cable companies' and phone
companies' client base.

There are still a lot of landlines in homes and businesses to this day,
though. Ma Bell's distant grandchildren still have their core products
throwing off a lot of cash (at least for now), but they've definitely noticed
the roll-off in their subscriber base.

