TV....we've all been hoodwinked!

[aarontunes]

When I was kid, TV had commercials and was limited to about 4 channels, but it was free.

Then cable came along, and we had 500 channels to choose from, some with no commercials. BUT.... it cost $100 or more a month. We all pined for an a la carte option, where we could pick and choose what we wanted.

Then came streaming, and life was great. A la carte choices, for $10 a month, and no commercials.

But darkness wasn't dead, just sleeping....and now it has returned.

All these streaming services are gobbling each other up at a voracious rate, once again limiting our options. Even more insidious, in-program commercials have returned to nearly every provider, unless you pay their ransom premium subscription rate. For a few channels you're back up over $100/ month. Just when live sports seemed to have finally figured streaming out, it was by-and-large locked behind a paywall. Most premium movies have to be purchased, or "rented" for nearly the same price.

In short: we are on threshold of being right back to where we started 40 years ago: limited TV options, with incessant commercials......except now we are all paying for it, instead of receiving it for free over the air.

The hoodwinking is complete.

 

[Don O]

Yea, I bit the bullet and forked over $3 a month to get rid of commercials on Prime.

 

[Hodgo]

It does suck, but the silver lining is the ad free options. It’s a little pricier, but my god I feel great having not watched a commercial in years. Ive almost completely forgotten what it felt like when we had to watch 7-9 minutes of ads for every 30 minutes of TV. Of course back then the commercial breaks offered you a quick sprint to the bathroom or kitchen before the show came back on…. Not sure that’s worth almost a third of my relaxation time being ads.

 

[BroccoliRob]

please forgive the cuss, but this phenomenon has been, for a few years now, referred to as Enshittification. now i wouldn't super say we been #hoodwinked, or at least not as much as i would say "this is the natural and actually quite predictable result of unchecked, anti-competitive, maximally capitalistic corporate world"

But as hodgo said, ad least we do have ad-free tiers (for now?). the costs have gotten to the point where rotating a very small number of services is the most cost-effective method for streamin'

 

[Strat Avenger]

It's all about greed.

 

[stratamania]

Read any good books lately?