
Please, keep paying $80 a month for cable so I can enjoy cheap TV - waderoush
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2013/10/18/please-keep-paying-80-month-cable-can-enjoy-cheap-tv/
======
ctdonath
_The fact that only a fraction of you have started using the streaming
services that give me access to so much great video content. Netflix, by far
the most successful Internet-based TV service, finished 2012 with only 27
million streaming subscribers in the U.S., compared to 99 million pay-TV
subscribers across the leading cable and satellite TV providers._

Wait, Netflix has a quarter the viewers of _all_ cable/sat TV viewers? Not
inclined to call that "only a fraction", more like the hemorrhaging is well
under way. Try taking _all_ streaming video customers into account, I'd guess
it's closer to half.

This "subsidizing" won't go on for long. My kids are growing with absolutely
no notion of what "TV" (the ad-driven kind) is; those who do are used to a
plethora of on-demand alternatives. 15 years from now, "channels" will be on-
demand streaming sources unlike the schedule-driven content we have now.

The one thing I think is still missing: the streaming equivalent of TV's "here
we are now, entertain us" \- the pick a source and just watch a curated series
of shows (not just same series episodes back-to-back).

~~~
thenomad
Netflix will do this, but only one film at a time, I think.

~~~
ctdonath
Think "play suggested movies, back-to-back, without stopping, all of them."

~~~
GFischer
A discovery function (previews of other shows? a program dedicated to
previewing available programming?) would be desirable as well.

Something equivalent to channel-zapping, or a tv listing.

Netflix might be beginning to suffer from the "Paradox of Choice" \- I don't
want to spend my already-depleted willpower choosing among all the available
programming.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less)

------
loso
The author doesn't like live sports so the people who do like sports are
suckers according to the article. Well I will take on that mantle because I
cut the cord for five years while living in NYC and the sports situation is
abysmal when you do that. Trying to find streams over the internet on Sunday
is a horrible ordeal and during the NBA season is 10x worse.

I watch about 5 broadcast shows throughout the year. One is gone now since
Breaking Bad is off the air. The only other thing I use my TV for is
CNBC/Bloomberg and sports. Cutting the cord is just a horrible situation when
that is the case.

~~~
teek
There's a solution to this problem... I got it! I'll rent a room and put a
bunch of giant TVs on the walls so it's even better than home. You'll be able
to watch 5 or more games all at the same time. To make things better, I'll
stock a local selection of the best beers and drinks. I'll even serve you
_better_ food like fresh french fries and chicken wings, not that crappy bag
of potato chips you get at the store. In fact, you won't even have to get up
to go get your drink, I'll hire some young college girls to do that for you...

~~~
atlanticus
If the food you get at the pub is better than your food at home you are doing
it wrong.

~~~
badman_ting
Hmm, I would say it really depends. Fried foods are much easier to pull off in
a commercial kitchen with a dedicated fryer, for example. If the weather is
bad, grilling at home may not be an option but may still be in a restaurant
kitchen. Et cetera.

------
TrunkleBob
It's really no different than any other early adopter premiums. They pay
$80-$100 every month to watch "Breaking Bad" now; I pay $8/month and I'll get
to watch it in a year or so when it hits Netflix. Just like the people driving
hybrids and electrics are bringing the cost down to where the rest of the
population can afford it.

The only real difference is that in this case the early adopter is the normal
case and the late adopters are the outliers.

~~~
jacobbudin
+1. You'll pay more to watch a movie in a theater than you will months later
when it's available on DVD. You'll pay more to watch the same movie on DVD
than you will months later when it's available on Netflix Watch Instantly.

This is how successful media business models work: milk the most money from
those who most desire the product.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "You'll pay more to watch a movie in a theater than you will months later
when it's available on DVD."

This isn't the case where I live. A new release DVD costs approx. £10. I can
get a cinema ticket for as little as £3.50.

~~~
jacobbudin
> This isn't the case where I live. A new release DVD costs approx. £10. I can
> get a cinema ticket for as little as £3.50.

I'm referring to renting the DVD. Or even buying the DVD, and watching it
together as a family or group (£10 DVD vs. 4*£3.50 movie tickets). But yes,
there are some caveats.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't consider the cost of tickets for
multiple people or renting the movie.

------
humanrebar
It doesn't bother me if everyone subsidizes my entertainment or not.

For people like me, entertainment is fungible. I can enjoy myself watching
football, playing a game from Steam, reading Mr. Money Moustache, streaming
something from Netflix, or renting from RedBox. The game has changed. There is
literally more high-quality entertainment than I have time to consume. Of
course there is going to be downward pressure on prices.

If any of those things cost too much to be worth it (like non-local-market NFL
games and non-event films in theaters), I'm going somewhere else with my
money.

If the economics don't make sense for Hulu to entertain me for cheap (the
number of commercials are pushing it already), no skin off my nose. There are
probably some books I haven't gotten around to reading anyway.

So, for me, the supply of entertainment is high, my supply of attention and my
budget for entertainment are both rapidly shrinking. So for me, and I suspect
more people every year, paying a large monthly fee for cable (or even
streaming services) is absurd.

~~~
JimboOmega
A lot of entertainment for a lot of people ISN'T fungible.

The reason being social. If I wait a year or two for a show to appear on
Netflix, my friends aren't talking about it, people aren't speculating about
it... the buzz is gone. It's falling out of the zeitgeist.

It's true that if my only goal is to sit in front of a screen and amuse myself
for a couple hours, it's very fungible. A $8/month netflix account + a $50/mo
(or less) internet connection lets me do that.

But I want to be in tune with the culture. I want to be able to talk to my
friends/family about that crazy play in the game on Sunday. I want to be able
to read all the [spoiler alert] postings when they are current. I want to be
able to play whatever game online with my friends while they are still
interested in it.

~~~
atwebb
I'm not sure if it's just my group of people or not but, since most of us are
"cord cutters", we tend to discuss things that recently came available or had
new seasons on Netflix/Hulu so it's new at that point in time to us. There's a
few we miss out on (Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones) but the rest we're
perfectly fine waiting for.

~~~
JimboOmega
It's funny in these discussions, and for me personally, there are three
reasons to have cable: 1)Breaking Bad 2)Game of Thrones 3)Football

It's really no wonder that they hold on to Game of Thrones like it's their
crown jewel. It is.

------
siegecraft
I think I understand that the author was trying to rile people up to try and
change their minds, but all I really got from it was because he doesn't care
about live sports, or watching TV shows as soon as they air, he doesn't have
to pay as much for TV. So brave.

------
buckbova
I pay well over this for AT&T U-verse.

I also have netflix and attempted to use Hulu for a while. I couldn't find
enough content I wanted to watch. It was too difficult to switch back and
forth between content.

Now I have hundreds of channels. There are 3D movies available to stream from
U-verse.

I will get the UFC fight tomorrow on PPV through AT&T which by itself will be
$60 for 3 hours of viewing.

"In short, my cushy life as a TV free rider is only feasible because there
lots of people like you who aren’t switching to Internet-only video. So
please, keep on subsidizing my high-quality, low-cost couch surfing experience
by paying your big cable bills for as long as you can."

Your viewing experience is not as good as mine. It's cute you think so.

~~~
goostavos
>it's cute you think so.

Oy.. So much smug over choice of entertainment packages. If you're into 3d
movies and sports, cable sounds like a good fit for you. Others, like myself,
aren't into sports (unless ESPN were to start broadcasting eSports), and I
have no desire for 3d movies nor 100s of channels. For me, Netflix, twitch,
and amazon gives me a better experience than cable.

It's almost as if, and this may be crazy, something being a "good experience"
is subjective.

~~~
buckbova
Based on the title of the article I deemed it appropriate.

"Please, Keep Paying $80 a Month for Cable So I Can Enjoy Cheap TV"

The author is picking up my scraps and he's welcome to them.

------
njharman
> I canceled my Hulu Plus subscription after two weeks because they were
> asking me to pay $8 a month and watch a bunch of ads

Hulu is a complete fucking piece of crap cause of this.

~~~
Yhippa
I wonder what the cost of Hulu is if they were to eliminate ads? If I hazard a
wild guess I could see it being around $16 to $20 which I don't know if people
would pay for that.

------
seanalltogether
The only legal way to stream Game of Thrones or Homeland without a cable
subscription is to pay $40 per season on iTunes or amazon. So who's
subsidizing who?

~~~
chollida1
> The only legal way to stream Game of Thrones or Homeland without a cable
> subscription is to pay $40 per season on iTunes or amazon. So who's
> subsidizing who?

Umm, My wife and I watched Homeland on Netflix. That's streaming and we don't
have a cable subscription.

What point are you making exactly?

~~~
seanalltogether
What do you mean? Homeland is only available as dvd/blu-ray on netflix?
Showtime and HBO lock down all their streaming.

[http://dvd.netflix.com/Search?v1=homeland&ac_abs_posn=-1&fcl...](http://dvd.netflix.com/Search?v1=homeland&ac_abs_posn=-1&fcld=true&ac_rel_posn=-1&ac_category_type=none)

~~~
dcope
Certain shows from Showtime are streaming. For example, Netflix has all of
'Weeds' available for streaming.

------
asperous
I just want to throw in here that with a small amount of effort, you can
antenna yourself free television in full high definition.

Content: (I live in a 54,000 population town: 20 channels or so, nbc, fox,
abc, etc.), major shows on major networks, live sports on certain days;
Drawback: no _Breaking Bad_ or other specialty channel shows.

Quality: Unbeatable all channels 1080i - No static, you either get the channel
or you don't.

Functionality: I use Windows Media Center which works like a dvr.

Cost: $40 tv tuner on ebay, $20 antenna from Radio Shack. No contracts or
subscriptions.

~~~
asperous
I should mention that if you are thinking about this, check your coverage
first:
[http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29](http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29)

Note that the best place to get signals is high up, on top stories or roofs.
Sorry basement dwellers.

------
ChikkaChiChi
I don't understand how/why cable hasn't gone the NetZero route. Give me a
cable box that I can't skip commercials on for free and maybe I'll consider
using it for entertainment purposes. They can make far, far more money
charging for advertising than by squeezing the end user.

Source: Google's stock today.

~~~
arsenic32
Yes. Because throwing advertisements on something always results in a Google
level of profit.

Source: Facebook's stock today.

Edit: Also the cable companies only own a small number of the channels they
broadcast therefore the ad revenue from those may be zero.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Then perhaps its time to disrupt the cable market...exactly like we've been
seeing over the past 24 months.

I felt this way the second I saw XBox Live. Imagine how much more content you
would be willing to consume from there if everything wasn't a la carte. You
have a captive audience where you can charge advertisers a premium for getting
in front of those eyes.

Instead the customers are asked to pay a monthly fee just to access online
content and you either pay per download or for a secondary service.

------
tericho
Live sports, end of argument.

~~~
_JamesA_
Yes, end of argument.

It's exactly why I don't miss paying for cable or watch much live TV.

I have absolutely zero interest in any sports whatsoever. Even trying to watch
the news you have to put up with ridiculous sports related stories weaved
throughout.

Thank god for PBS.

------
pkulak
I have a hard time believing that I'm being subsidized for my lack of a cable
bill. Could AMC really be getting more from me with transmission fees and ads
than the $3.99 I pay (gladly, btw) for _each_ episode of Mad Med or Breaking
Bad? If everyone cut their cable, that would be a lot of new $3-$4 purchases.

The last episode of Breaking Bad had 6 million live viewers. Assume that
everyone cuts their cable, and only half buy the finale for the average price
of $3.5. Also assume that prior to this no one is buying it at all. Yank the
standard Apple-style 30% and that's still almost 15 million dollars. That's
real money right there.

~~~
brandon272
I think your numbers are off.

Assuming that everyone cuts their cable and half of the 6 million people who
watched the Breaking Bad series finale pay the $3.50 to watch it, that's
$10,500,000. Less Apple's 30%, that's $7,350,000 in revenue left.

Bear in mind two things:

1) It reportedly costs $3M to $3.5M to make an episode of Breaking Bad.

2) The average viewership per episode in the last couple of seasons was
substantially less than 6 million viewers.

Suddenly the numbers become a little murkier.

~~~
joezydeco
Let's not forget how many millions it takes to write, develop, and throw away
pilots until you get a series that works with the viewers.

AMC would never have had the money to do this and Mad Men without the subsidy
of cable bundles funding them during the early years. If AMC was an ala-carte
channel in 2005, none of this would have happened.

~~~
erichocean
You're absolutely right. The majority* of people on HN seem to have no clue
how TV and Film is actually paid for, how the content ecosystem itself works.
They just see the end product.

To flip the tables a bit, here is the same logic being applied to tech,
instead of TV/Film:

First, lets get rid of these incubators, angels, VCs, and IPOs pumping money
into the system up front. Surely, the $30 million spent to start Foobr.com
could easily be paid by the users, right?

Second, instead...sell time on Foobr.com at $2.99/day a la carte. Multiple by
the 1 million users that the $30 million pre-funded Foobr.com has today, and
Boom! Foobr.com can _clearly_ exist (in the same form, too!) if we got rid of
incubators, VCs, IPOs, aquihires, and all the rest.

Third, gloat on HN, in blogs, podcasts, and on Twitter. It's math, dude! Bask
in my brilliant economic analysis of the startup ecosystem. You people working
at Ycombinator and VCs, and buying stock at IPOs? Chumps, all of you! You're
just subsidizing my usage. I get for _free_ what you pay _billions_ for.
Idiots.

\----

This analogy (if you don't know TV and Film is funded) is much stronger than
you'd think. It's amazing how similar the two are in terms of funding.

And hopefully everyone can agree that removing literally _all_ of the up front
funding channels for tech startups, and instead moving to a la carte pricing
on the final product, is not a workable plan. The same is true of TV and Film.
You cannot simply move it to a la carte pricing and expect the exact same
things to be available, and at the same quality level.

There are very strong reasons why the Film/TV ecosystem is the way it is that
are not immediately obvious to people outside of it. If you want to disrupt
it, you'll first need to understand it.

*as best I can tell

------
jarrett
If only we could all get in on this deal! Many of us are economically savvy
enough to take advantage like the author does, but we can't. Why? Because our
_only_ available ISP is a cable company.

And no, I'm not in a rural, remote, or otherwise hard-to-serve area. For many
years I've lived in affluent, dense, urban neighborhoods in some of America's
most important cities. Yet I've never had any ISP available other than the
cable company.

Those of you who are familiar with the ISP industry: By your estimate, when
will most Americans have _at least two_ options for Internet service?

~~~
eric_the_read
Why does that matter? My ISP is a cable company, too, but I don't subscribe to
their TV service.

~~~
jarrett
Because of how cable companies often price their internet-only package. I
think it's about $10/month less than internet + TV, in my case. So I strongly
suspect I'm helping subsidize things that aren't related to my internet usage.

~~~
tsotha
Where I live if you get the basic TV package with your internet it's cheaper
than internet alone. The reason is some of the channels (like HSN, for
instance) pay your cable company to be broadcast.

------
jamesaguilar
I'm not sure what the takeaway of this is. Yes, people have to pay more for
certain kinds of content, because cable+satellite has a monopoly on it. It
seems in poor taste to gloat about that fact, though.

------
smsm42
Stopping using cable/satellite TV is on my TODO list for years. However, I
happen to like watching a bunch of TV shows (my active show list on next-
episode.net is 25 names, 10 of which are running or will be in close future -
so I watch about 1 episode per day and 2 on the weekends usually). I also
never watch live TV - I get my news from better sources. As far as I can see,
right now there's only one viable alternative for me to cable/satellite
subscription - the Pirate Bay. As I am not fond of it for both legal reasons
and reasons of convenience (it can be automated, but the time I'd spend doing
it would be considerable and I want to spend it on other things). I'd be happy
to have a service that given me access (immediate or ~week delay, I don't
watch most of the shows same day) to the 10 shows I watch and I'd be
completely willing to pay them the same ~$50/month I pay to my TV company (and
they don't need to supply me with expensive equipment for free!). Netflix
choice is abysmal, and so are Hulu Plus and others. Buying those individually
on something like iTunes would cost me about 5x-10x and probably lock me up in
a horrible world of incompatible format and DRM hassles. So, my choice is
either say "screw the law" and go all-in for Pirate Bay, or pay the
cable/satellite. I hope somebody will give me another choice, because,
frankly, every cable/satellite company I was with sucked in its own unique
way. But I just don't see any (legal ones) right now.

------
mmuro
Okay, fine. I will pay more up front to watch TV as it happens. But, you can't
complain that HBO Go isn't available without a cable subscription anymore.

------
zacinbusiness
LMFAO

I use digital/HD cable, Netflix, iTunes, and HBO Go along with using TOR to
watch shows that I normally can't see here in the U.S.

Why? Is it because I'm a sucker? No. It's because I got a good job and I can
afford the things that I like and that make myself and my wife happy.

Not everyone wants to watch live TV, some people are happy to watch their
shows afterwards, which makes sense. Personally, I hate the hassle of using
illegal streaming sites and I refuse to use torrents just because I dislike
gambling on the quality.

I pay $80 a month for decently fast internet (30 down and 5 or so up), all the
broadcast and premium tv I can watch, and the ability to watch tons of HBO
content on-demand via my phone or iPad wherever I am. Then I pay for Netflix
streaming and that adds that much more value, so let's call it $90 a month.
That's absolutely nothing.

But, if you want to pay less then that's a fine choice as well, and I can
respect that. It doesn't make me a sucker any more than it does you. Now, go
bag my groceries.

------
yekim
TV? What's that? I haven't watched TV in years now; neither have my wife and
kids. We're much too frugal for cable. If there's a show we want to watch, we
stream it off of Hulu or from the network's site if Hulu doesn't have it.

Before this article, I'd never heard of Aereo. Their solution sounds pretty
sweet. I signed up for being notified once they're in my area. I'd love to
ditch the big frickin' antenna in my garage attic since it does absolutely
jack squat in terms of picking up digital TV signals these days. We're bound
by neighborhood covenant laws from having an antenna outside, so having Aereo
would be great.

The only thing I'm "meh" about Aereo is $8 / month. I'd be willing to pay $5
or less. $8 / month is too steep for me given our media consumption habits.

~~~
pravda
>We're bound by neighborhood covenant laws from having an antenna outside, so
having Aereo would be great.

Are you in the USA? Laws* that interfere with antenna use are not enforceable.

[http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-
rule](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule)

* "applies to state or local laws or regulations, including zoning, land-use or building regulations, private covenants, homeowners' association rules, condominium or cooperative association restrictions, lease restrictions, or similar restrictions on property within the exclusive use or control of the antenna user where the user has an ownership or leasehold interest in the property"

------
mynd
I spend more on drinks in one week. And besides there's just something
nostalgic about live television you can't (currently) replicate on the web. I
can instantly watch programming on topics I would otherwise not seek out
myself.

------
pravda
We're actually all 'suckers'. The broadcast networks earn $billions from their
use of the public airwaves and pay us nothing in return.

"We don't give away trees to newspaper publishers. Why should we give away
more airwaves to broadcasters? The airwaves are a natural resource. They do
not belong to the broadcasters, phone companies or any other industry. They
belong to the American people."

from [http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/27/opinion/giving-away-the-
ai...](http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/27/opinion/giving-away-the-
airwaves.html)

~~~
YokoZar
Since that article was published significant amounts of spectrum were taken
back from the TV industry and auctioned off to the highest bidder (cell phone
companies, mostly): that's why everyone needed to switch from analog rabbit
ears to digital TV reception.

~~~
pravda
Yes, and the broadcast companies don't pay a cent of rent. Why are the public
airwaves given free to private corporations?

Why shouldn't, for example, CBS be charged a modest $1,000,000,000/year for
their use of the public airwaves?

------
pbreit
I pay $60/month to Comcast for TV and Internet and hardly feel like I'm
getting ripped off or subsidizing anyone. I pay $9/month to Hulu and Netflix
and hardly ever watch them.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I pay $70/month in the Chicago suburbs to Comcast for only internet access (12
down/4 up), and I definitely feel like I'm getting ripped off.

~~~
pc86
$100/mo for 50/25 FiOS here. We've currently got too many ancillary services
in my opinion - Netflix DVD and streaming, Hulu+ and Amazon Prime streaming

------
joshuahedlund
I wonder how similar these economics are to the folks paying $120 a month for
cell phones so others can enjoy cheap coverage via MVNO's.

~~~
bsimpson
When you amortize out the cost of a smartphone subsidy, it's basically a wash.
You can either spend $1600 over 2 years on AT&T and get your phone for < $300,
or spend $1000 over 2 years on StraightTalk and pay full retail ($750 on an
iPhone 5s).

The cost savings start to add up if you hold on to your phone for longer than
2 years, but if you're the kind of person who buys a cutting edge phone every
18 months, prepaid is only an advantage if you care about being able to switch
carriers on the drop of a hat.

------
mmagin
I am not convinced that that much of that $80/month actually goes to the
production of these TV shows he watches. If it did, I think cable would have
less ads, and I would also think that I wouldn't be paying $65/month to
Comcast for cable modem service (no TV service).

------
Dirlewanger
Aereo can't grow fast enough. I am willing to sacrifice a small child to get
their services.

~~~
whichdan
What's the appeal of Aereo? It only has a handful of channels.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Actual TV on your desktop/phone. No messing with buying a tuner or any crap
like that. Only thing that would suck is bandwidth caps...but you might as
well get a more expensive plan if you do away with TV.

------
kcbanner
Well, that was hard to read

------
error54
I always said that I'd gladly pay for cable when they let me pick and choose
what channels I get. I refuse to pay $50+ when all I really want is maybe 5-8
channels out of the 120 they offer.

------
maskedinvader
surprised he mentioned Game of Thrones, since the DVD releases much later and
HBO doesn't let you stream anything unless you have a valid HBO cable
subscription. Also Netflix doesnt have all the shows, neither do any of the
other stream only services he mentioned. My point is, either way you will not
great deal, cut the cord or not !

------
therandomguy
Hey, you are welcome. I'm glad you appreciate it especially since I pay $80
and don't even watch TV.

------
jrockway
I'm glad those $80/month people are subsidizing my House of Cards viewing.

