• Etterra@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    What we wanted: a-la-carte channels.

    What we got: seven expensive streaming services and they all still somehow have ESPN bullshit.

  • Veraxus@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    On the up-side, I can cancel subscriptions whenever I want and only subscribe to one or two at a time when they have something I want to watch. I could never do that with cable.

    That said, pricing is getting way out of control. I will not tolerate ads and we’re getting to the point where purchasing content makes more financial sense than subscribing to things that load you up with caveats unless you pay premiums.

  • fuzzywombat@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    With the current state of streaming services mess, I think I would have signed up for disc rental by mail. Access to nearly 100% of media at highest quality for around 10 to 15 bucks a month seems like pretty good deal right about now. Sadly Netflix killed that part of their business so I can’t even go back to that.

  • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Meanwhile pirating content and streaming it has never been easier. Jellyfin and private trackers ftw

  • Audacious@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    I stopped using Hulu when it introduced ads over a decade ago and never looked back. The stock of that company did really well despite the cable-like inconveniences.

    • snownyte@kbin.social
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      4 months ago

      You’re correct.

      Social Media is the perfect example of this. Everytime a new social media network arrives, they always boast about being able to do things you could already have done with the other 9 social media networks. Sharing pictures and video, chatting .etc. They’re all things we could’ve already have done far way back in the days of messaging software like AIM. It’s nothing new, it’s just recycled ideas being treated as new.

      The only things that have ever improved were the amount of size of videos and pictures we can share and the speed in which we’re able to do it with. That’s it.

      The well of finding new ideas has ran dry, because they’ve all been tried and done before many times. New name, same old shit.

  • redeyejedi@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Yes, but no. Cable didn’t used to let you watch all seasons of a specific show on any given day and time of your choosing.

    • pixel_prophet@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Until the show you want to watch gets removed because they don’t want to pay the licensing fee for it anymore.

      The original content is often very mid.

    • snownyte@kbin.social
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      4 months ago

      Pretty much.

      If you missed an episode of a show on cable television. Well, you’re shit out of luck unless it’s a show that the network didn’t mind running re-runs of, but re-runs only applied for shows that were popular. And if you missed an episode of a show that wasn’t popular, again you were shit out of luck and hope to one day acquire it through a VHS or a DVD or these days, blu-ray or on streaming.

      Network programming was always like this.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m old enough to remember when cable didn’t have ads. I was really young, maybe 5ish, but even then it was confusing to me when they started adding commercials. That was for bad TV with the antenna. Then it was only HBO that didn’t have ads, but we couldn’t afford that until I was much older.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Yep, cable was first used to allow people to watch the same channels that were available over the air just from a more locations than what was available via antenna at their home (and with better reception), so it had the same commercials.

          Premium channels were commercial-less for 7 or 9 years (can’t remember exactly) before the first premium channel decided to start running adverts.

          • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            There also used to be product placement ads during the shows too. I feel like that’s also more insidious when Jed Clampett and Granny are telling you every episode to smoke a Winston and eat Kellogg’s.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          You’re right. I guess I was remembering premium channels and some niche channels that were cable-only. Most channels available on early cable were just piping non-local broadcast channels down a cable.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        If you got it over antenna, it most definitely was not cable.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I didn’t say I got it over antenna. I said TV with commercials was for TV that came from the antenna.

  • tedu@azorius.net
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    4 months ago

    What is this “world of content” the author is talking about? 17 years ago, the streaming options on Netflix were the previous season of Friday Night Lights, and… that was it. A few years later they got The Office, but never the current season. So you were always behind. These articles never seem to include a graph of available content over time.