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If you're paying for Internet, you're paying for someone to provide with you advertisements in exactly the same way. Cable is merely the delivery method -- the

If you're paying for Internet, you're paying for someone to provide with you advertisements in exactly the same way. Cable is merely the delivery method -- the networks and stations themselves are providing the content separately and using advertising to fund it. If you pay for premium cable channels like HBO then you're actually contributing your money to the production of advertisement-free content.

staplers 9y ago
Except Cable is purely an entertainment-consumption medium. Whereas the internet provides tools and services vastly beyond entertainment including creation of content, goods, and services. The value-cost ratio is absurdly better on the internet.
- wvenable 9y ago
  That's just progress. At the time cable was deployed, the value-cost ratio was quite a bit better. For many people the Internet is deployed to them on the very same cables that were originally laid just for television. A lot of people have cable because they've always had cable and now there's a generation of people coming up who've never had it.
munk-a 9y ago
It is (or was, I haven't checked recently) very difficult to actually just pay for HBO. I had wanted to get a subscription for a few different shows they offer and every way to get access to them involved paying for cable channel bundles. I assume cable companies are shoveling money at HBO as fast as they can manage as otherwise it'd be a wise idea for HBO to just begin offering ala carte access to their content and get oodles of free money.
- crysin 9y ago
  If you're in the US there is HBO Now which is their cable-free subscription service. I believe the actual monthly fees are still being serviced by third parties though, e.g. I pay Apple 15 dollars a month for my HBO subscription, but I get all the content through HBOs website directly.
  - munk-a 9y ago
    Ah yes... if only the walled gardens weren't configured to see we Canadians as an entirely different sort of person. Sadly the HoBOGO is only available up here if you have a cable TV subscription that offers HBO.
- sjg007 9y ago
  You can get HBO a la Carte through Amazon or even HBO itself.

staplers 9y ago

Except Cable is purely an entertainment-consumption medium. Whereas the internet provides tools and services vastly beyond entertainment including creation of content, goods, and services. The value-cost ratio is absurdly better on the internet.

wvenable 9y ago
That's just progress. At the time cable was deployed, the value-cost ratio was quite a bit better. For many people the Internet is deployed to them on the very same cables that were originally laid just for television. A lot of people have cable because they've always had cable and now there's a generation of people coming up who've never had it.

munk-a 9y ago

It is (or was, I haven't checked recently) very difficult to actually just pay for HBO. I had wanted to get a subscription for a few different shows they offer and every way to get access to them involved paying for cable channel bundles. I assume cable companies are shoveling money at HBO as fast as they can manage as otherwise it'd be a wise idea for HBO to just begin offering ala carte access to their content and get oodles of free money.

crysin 9y ago
If you're in the US there is HBO Now which is their cable-free subscription service. I believe the actual monthly fees are still being serviced by third parties though, e.g. I pay Apple 15 dollars a month for my HBO subscription, but I get all the content through HBOs website directly.
- munk-a 9y ago
  Ah yes... if only the walled gardens weren't configured to see we Canadians as an entirely different sort of person. Sadly the HoBOGO is only available up here if you have a cable TV subscription that offers HBO.
sjg007 9y ago
You can get HBO a la Carte through Amazon or even HBO itself.