I finally took the plunge and dumped my cable TV. Now I watch television on the internet via Hulu and Netflix and a few other places. Netflix is a good deal, for around ten bucks a month I can watch anything streaming and get as many DVDs (one at a time) as I want a month. Hulu and Infinity (formerly Fancast) are SORTA free . . . but each week they take one more program/series off their free list and stick it on their subscribers list. Infinity makes you sign up at Comcast - which means you're back paying a cable bill again - only this time you can only get it on internet devices.
I can see the way they're all going and pretty soon I suspect I'll be paying as much to them as I did to cable, which is a crying shame. But in the meantime I get pretty much everything I want to see (with a few notable exceptions) free or for a minimal fee.
Netflix is great right now because I can see all those great premium cable shows (Spartacus, Dexter, Etc) now but they dole them out in little parcels to keep you paying that ten bucks. Plus there's a ton of movies I've missed that I can see one way or the other. It's a deal for the price.
Of course, all of these services are supported by ads, just like television has been since it's inception. I don't have a problem with that though when you watch streaming there's no way to avoid the commercials except to mute your device. The only problem is that so many of the "sponsors" (those companies that are streaming those ads) don't quite get what they're doing. All of this content is done in flash and sometimes the ad will be cranked up so high in volume it can knock you out of your chair!
Television ads have always been loud - it's not the volume, they're not allowed to go above a certain volume level by law - it's the decibels. Somehow they've kept within the legal volume restrictions and have managed to still blast their crap at you. Now online they're doing it as well.
Face it, folks, we are NEVER going to get away from ads while viewing our favorite movies or TV programs. Advertising is the wallet that drives the entertainment party, but it would be nice if they didn't deafen us while hawking their crap. So, WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY TO WATCH TELEVISION?? Anyone else remember when television was free??
ON AN UP NOTE
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