5 ms·

"Young people are still spending big chunks of their time watching TV, but the youngs are finding different ways to waste their lives." - that quote made my day

by mamon 10y ago

"Young people are still spending big chunks of their time watching TV, but the youngs are finding different ways to waste their lives." - that quote made my day :) Anyway, back to the point, I am now in my mid-thirties and have never owned a TV. Of course I wasted a lot of time this way in my youth, but since the advent of Internet, online streaming, torrents, etc. I find television to be terrible user experience, because it is totaly non-interactive. I just can't stand the fact that someone else is making the schedule that I need to follow. Internet gives me the possibility of watching what I want whenever I want it. The only exception to this rule are football matches that must be watched live, but those also are streamed nowadays. I expect television to be completly gone in 10-15 years time.

merpnderp 10y ago
My 4 year old son has never known normal TV. His entire life has been internet based tv shows and movies. We just went on vacation to a place without internet and they had only cable tv. He was so frustrated with commercials, not being able to pause, or quickly pick a show he wanted to watch, that he decided he'd rather not watch tv at all. So yes, the experience is much worse than internet tv, at least for onboarding 4 year olds. (As a replacement for tv my son picked building sand castles and playing miniature golf, so huge win)
rimantas 10y ago
I've the TV that is very interactive. You can pauser, rewind, watch the missed programs, set reminders, etc.
Kurtz79 10y ago
By "TV" in the US do you refer to the service or the physical medium, in general ? I think "physical" TVs have still a way to go, I'm in my mid-thirties and haven't plugged in mine to an aerial since at least 10 years, but it still sees extensive use plugged in to a console or to an HTPC. But 10-15 years it's lot of time in tech, maybe by that time we will have holodecks :)
tomjen3 10y ago
I have a tv that is used to what flow-tv substantially never (less than 4 minutes in the last year or so), but at the company gym I have noticed some of the older people turn on the tv right as they go in and don't even mute it during commercials and my grandparents will religiously turn on the tv to watch the 9 o'clock news daily. I think this is really a generational issue and I very much doubt it will be gone in 10-15 years, but it will probably have epsilon uptake and die with the generation that is now in their later 30s.
Naga 10y ago
I'm younger than you and I own two TVs. I just don't subscribe to a cable package. I used to watch everything on my desktop, but now I usually find my couch is comfier.
superuser2 10y ago
>I expect television to be completly gone in 10-15 years time. I'm a little confused by this statement. The industry that produces the content you stream is what I would call "television" and if it's gone there will be no new content to stream. Which of the two cable company boxes in your house it's delivered through seems like an implementation detail.
- realo 10y ago
  Well... I listen to Netflix-originated content a lot. None of the original Netflix shows were produced by the legacy TV industry... and I am perfectly ok with that. The quality is quite high. So yes. If the legacy TV industry does not change their business model ASAP , their days are counted.
  - superuser2 10y ago
    The networks commission projects from studios. The networks are a delivery and financing mechanism; the studios are the actual content creators. Broadcast-focused networks are rightly being disrupted by internet-focused distributors, but the real substance is the studios. House of Cards was created by Media Rights Capital, which has a portfolio of "legacy" TV and film projects [0]. Orange is the New Black was created by Lionsgate, which also did Mad Men [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Rights_Capital#Television_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Rights_Capital#Televisio... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate#Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate#Television Netflix-originated content is absolutely produced by the legacy TV industry, it's just purchased for distribution by a company specializing in a different method of distribution.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      This. Much of the content available for streaming is produced by the same people making content for linear TV. The rights get sold to the highest bidder when they are sold. There are lots of other deals and structures (exclusivity, paying for the right to buy or pass on all future content a studio might make, strategically holding onto rights until later, windowing, theatre rights, SVOD rights, retail, etc etc), but the industry doing the production hasn't changed that much just yet.
fma 10y ago
Ah good ol HN posters and their extreme views. By your same logic radio should have been 'completely gone' 50 years ago.
- randomdata 10y ago
  Except radio did not really provide a solution to the interactivity problem until the internet came along either. Youtube and Podcasts grew in popularity around the same timeframe, so I don't think it is fair to say that radio is ahead of the curve here.
  - fma 10y ago
    I'm not saying it's ahead of the curve. I'm saying it's not "completely gone". I would have no problems if OP says lower audience, lower ad rates...but to say completely gone? These kind of extreme comments serves no purpose but for someone to boost their ego.
    - randomdata 10y ago
      On the assumption of the the parent believing that over the internet on-demand delivered video content will completely replace broadcast TV in 10-15 years, I am asserting that broadcast radio will also take at least that long to disappear, as on-demand radio appeared at a similar point in time. Just because radio is older does not mean that its potential successors, like Podcasts, are older. I am really unsure of where your '50 years ago' timeframe is coming from. If there were interactive on-demand radio services back then, I certainly have never heard of them, and they definitely did not reach a level of accessibility where giving up traditional broadcast radio in favour of on-demand programming could be a realistic option for most of the population. To add to that, audio is not necessarily consumed the same way video is. People might be completely happy to have a non-interactive previously scheduled radio broadcast ready for them when they hop into their car, for instance, while not accepting the same of their screen in the living room. Just because he thinks that non-interactive TV will soon be dead does not mean he believes radio will reach the same fate.

by mamon 10y ago

merpnderp 10y ago

My 4 year old son has never known normal TV. His entire life has been internet based tv shows and movies. We just went on vacation to a place without internet and they had only cable tv. He was so frustrated with commercials, not being able to pause, or quickly pick a show he wanted to watch, that he decided he'd rather not watch tv at all. So yes, the experience is much worse than internet tv, at least for onboarding 4 year olds. (As a replacement for tv my son picked building sand castles and playing miniature golf, so huge win)

rimantas 10y ago

I've the TV that is very interactive. You can pauser, rewind, watch the missed programs, set reminders, etc.

Kurtz79 10y ago

By "TV" in the US do you refer to the service or the physical medium, in general ? I think "physical" TVs have still a way to go, I'm in my mid-thirties and haven't plugged in mine to an aerial since at least 10 years, but it still sees extensive use plugged in to a console or to an HTPC. But 10-15 years it's lot of time in tech, maybe by that time we will have holodecks :)

tomjen3 10y ago

I have a tv that is used to what flow-tv substantially never (less than 4 minutes in the last year or so), but at the company gym I have noticed some of the older people turn on the tv right as they go in and don't even mute it during commercials and my grandparents will religiously turn on the tv to watch the 9 o'clock news daily. I think this is really a generational issue and I very much doubt it will be gone in 10-15 years, but it will probably have epsilon uptake and die with the generation that is now in their later 30s.

Naga 10y ago

I'm younger than you and I own two TVs. I just don't subscribe to a cable package. I used to watch everything on my desktop, but now I usually find my couch is comfier.

superuser2 10y ago

>I expect television to be completly gone in 10-15 years time. I'm a little confused by this statement. The industry that produces the content you stream is what I would call "television" and if it's gone there will be no new content to stream. Which of the two cable company boxes in your house it's delivered through seems like an implementation detail.

realo 10y ago
Well... I listen to Netflix-originated content a lot. None of the original Netflix shows were produced by the legacy TV industry... and I am perfectly ok with that. The quality is quite high. So yes. If the legacy TV industry does not change their business model ASAP , their days are counted.
- superuser2 10y ago
  The networks commission projects from studios. The networks are a delivery and financing mechanism; the studios are the actual content creators. Broadcast-focused networks are rightly being disrupted by internet-focused distributors, but the real substance is the studios. House of Cards was created by Media Rights Capital, which has a portfolio of "legacy" TV and film projects [0]. Orange is the New Black was created by Lionsgate, which also did Mad Men [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Rights_Capital#Television_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Rights_Capital#Televisio... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate#Television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionsgate#Television Netflix-originated content is absolutely produced by the legacy TV industry, it's just purchased for distribution by a company specializing in a different method of distribution.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    This. Much of the content available for streaming is produced by the same people making content for linear TV. The rights get sold to the highest bidder when they are sold. There are lots of other deals and structures (exclusivity, paying for the right to buy or pass on all future content a studio might make, strategically holding onto rights until later, windowing, theatre rights, SVOD rights, retail, etc etc), but the industry doing the production hasn't changed that much just yet.

fma 10y ago

Ah good ol HN posters and their extreme views. By your same logic radio should have been 'completely gone' 50 years ago.

randomdata 10y ago
Except radio did not really provide a solution to the interactivity problem until the internet came along either. Youtube and Podcasts grew in popularity around the same timeframe, so I don't think it is fair to say that radio is ahead of the curve here.
- fma 10y ago
  I'm not saying it's ahead of the curve. I'm saying it's not "completely gone". I would have no problems if OP says lower audience, lower ad rates...but to say completely gone? These kind of extreme comments serves no purpose but for someone to boost their ego.
  - randomdata 10y ago
    On the assumption of the the parent believing that over the internet on-demand delivered video content will completely replace broadcast TV in 10-15 years, I am asserting that broadcast radio will also take at least that long to disappear, as on-demand radio appeared at a similar point in time. Just because radio is older does not mean that its potential successors, like Podcasts, are older. I am really unsure of where your '50 years ago' timeframe is coming from. If there were interactive on-demand radio services back then, I certainly have never heard of them, and they definitely did not reach a level of accessibility where giving up traditional broadcast radio in favour of on-demand programming could be a realistic option for most of the population. To add to that, audio is not necessarily consumed the same way video is. People might be completely happy to have a non-interactive previously scheduled radio broadcast ready for them when they hop into their car, for instance, while not accepting the same of their screen in the living room. Just because he thinks that non-interactive TV will soon be dead does not mean he believes radio will reach the same fate.