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I may be in the minority here, but one aspect of TV that I'd miss if did end up 'cutting the cable' would be the communal sense I get from watching TV. It's a b
by meri_dian 10y ago
I may be in the minority here, but one aspect of TV that I'd miss if did end up 'cutting the cable' would be the communal sense I get from watching TV. It's a bit hard to articulate, but when I watch TV I know that other people are watching exactly what I'm watching on that channel at that time. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you look at the Sun or Moon and know that people hundreds or thousands of miles from you are looking at the exact same thing. Or perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be watching a movie in a theater. Being there in the theater with other people is part of the experience and adds to it.
Netflix and streaming services don't really offer this because while other people may have watched what you're currently watching, your viewing experiences aren't synced up. You can watch whatever you want when you want and so the chances that you're watching the same thing at the same time, synced with others, is very small. Though freedom of choice is the major strength of streaming services and I love them for it, you lose that vague connection of sharing a singlular experience - watching that show, at that time - with thousands of others.
Maybe if Netflix were to implement a feature that indicated how many people were watching a show or movie at any given time it'd restore the communal aspect.
- imglorp 10y agoThis is a good point. I could almost imagine a live social site where you could "watch X with friends" like a meetup and chat on a side channel. Of course you could do this wholly out of band but NF could certainly be involved.
- fenwick67 10y agoI have seen this with... erm... less-than-legal streaming setups, it would be great of somebody figured out how to do it legitimately. With Youtube it would actually be pretty simple because you can embed an iFrame for the video and manipulate the timestamp, but with other streaming sites I imagine it would be harder.
- Tyr42 10y agoI do watch stuff on Twitch with friends, for example the League of Legends LCS games.
- tartuffe78 10y agoI still get this feeling for some shows, like House of cards and Stranger things for example. Most people (that are commenting online, or talking about it at work anyway) are binge watching in the first week or two, so you know quite a few people are watching at the same time as you, even if its not exactly in sync.
- sweetishfish 10y agoI think a great feature addition would be a planned watch party so you can invite friends and all start an episode at the same time
- urbanj 10y agoFor Netflix, there's a great extension called Showgoers that does exactly that. http://showgoers.tv/ http://showgoers.tv/
- sweetishfish 10y agoYoutube is experimenting with an app that allows users to watch videos together and interact in real time. So you can invite a friend to watch and it will start playing for both of you at the same time. https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/google-experiments-with-communal-youtube-watching-with-new-app-uptime/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/03/google-experiments-...
- mholmes680 10y agohow twitter/periscope hasn't figured this out already is beyond me.
- DougN7 10y agoYou're the first person I've seen describe this, but I feel exactly the same way about listening to the radio. I can listen to my own music collection, but there isn't the vague sense of community and 'life'. So even though I don't hear as many favorite songs, I still prefer radio. Internet radio is half way in between.
- baldfat 10y agoSling, Direct TV and Sony Vue? all are live channels. There are also On Demand (YouTube TV will have Live and unlimited DVR) and they cost $25 to $35 to start with. I say give it a go and try it for 7 days.
- selectodude 10y agoThose are all like 20-30 seconds behind live for some reason. When you watching something while following along on say, Twitter, you're going to get spoilers. I encounter it while watching hockey constantly.
- Diederich 10y agoI've been thinking about this too. Maybe more of a twitch.tv style delivery scheme? When they streamed all of Bob Ross' stuff, that was hugely popular. So maybe stream it at a time/schedule announced ahead of time, and then give the ability to view any of the previously streamed content. Seems like most of the best of both worlds.