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AT&T loses nearly 1M TV customers after raising DirecTV prices

64 points by furcyd 7y ago

jobu 7y ago
DirecTV, Comcast, and Netflix are all losing customers. Are there winners in this space or are people finding other things to do with their time?
- gfs 7y ago
  I think some of it could be subscription burnout. All these networks are fragmenting and offering a subset of shows that I want to watch but don't want to pay or keep track of. Plus, I think people get a lot of content via other internet sites too.
  - saxonww 7y ago
    This is essentially what people asked Cable for all these years - a la carte service. They wouldn't or couldn't do it, so now we're getting this. There was no way content was going to let third parties basically take the place of Cable at a fraction of the cost. What will be interesting is if we end up with bundlers to combine billing because of subscription burnout and whether it will just be the Cable companies.
    - hakfoo 7y ago
      Aside from billing, some sort of combined UX, browse/search/discovery and platform support would be important. Honestly, I wonder if this is somewhere device manufacturers could get an edge. They already have to build the integrations for their individual platforms, so they could wire them together into an interface which says "I just want to watch Black Lagoon, not worry about whose catalog it's in this week." I wonder if the money people would pay for "the slickest smart TV experience on the market" exceeds the kickback for putting the hard-coded Netflix and Amazon remote buttons, which only serve to reinforce the silos.
- ggg3 7y ago
  daytime tv is now fully replaced with UGC. people now scrolls instagram/tiktok/etc for hours and hours. so when the vestigial bill changes price, it's enough to call people into action.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    UGC == user generated content?
- sdinsn 7y ago
  Netflix is not losing customers. They have never had a quarter where they lost customers.
  - harshalizee 7y ago
    They just did
    - sdinsn 7y ago
      They lost customers in the US, not customers overall.
  - endianswap 7y ago
    They lost US customers in Q2, which is probably what OP is referring to.
    - sdinsn 7y ago
      If that's what he was referring to, he should have said US customers.
  - SirensOfTitan 7y ago
    This comment is getting unfairly downvoted. Netflix did not lose customers this past quarter, they added new ones globally. They did lose net customers in the US, though.
- meddlin 7y ago
  Some people are postulating that subscribers are moving to newer services (i.e. Disney). A slight piracy resurgence is coming around again. A return to the "cable model", but with refined content choice may win out. Already an average sized household subscribing to several services rivals a cheaper cable bill.
  - basch 7y ago
    They are moving to a service that isnt released yet? Canceling in preparation. Do you really think most of the US is aware disney has a service coming?
- guiomie 7y ago
  I think Netflix might be more of a seasonal thing or business readjustment, while Comcast, it's really the end of a business: linear TV.
- sjg007 7y ago
  I am guessing YouTube and social media.
- snarf21 7y ago
  It feels like it is what happened with TV and cable. At first there were 30 channels. Years later there are 900 channels. It gets harder to separate the good from the bad and the majority is garbage. Now you also have all these services having exclusives to get lock in. But to get all this top exclusive content, you need to pay for 12 services which is basically back to cable. We really need a new model. Customers would prefer micro-transactions and providers and producers want recurring locked in revenue. Something has to give.
- mbreese 7y ago
  Netflix was reported as saying that one of their major competitors wasn't the broadcast networks or cable, but rather Fortnite. There are lots of companies that are vying for your attention, and back when the choice was Cable or Cable plus Netflix, it was an easier bet to have Netflix. Now, you have Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, CBS All Access, AMC and FX (I think?) have their own streaming, HBO, SHO, and soon the Mouse is going to have a must have service. And that's not even considering the amount of time people spend on "alternative" forms of entertainment, such as video games. It's all just too much, so I think there will be a lot of churn with Netflix. Instead of getting 12 months of service from Netflix, I think we'll see people hopping around more between 2-3 different services each month.
- hbosch 7y ago
  YouTube and Twitch are the real winners IMO.
- moate 7y ago
  Netflix is your outlier in this group. They're probably losing subscribers (in certain locations) because things are fragmenting and every content creator wants to try and start an app right now. Short term (next 5 years) we're probably going to go through a painful adjustment period where CBS keeps trying to make CBS now happen before they realize they should just shut it down and put everything through Hulu. Consumers aren't going to keep paying 8-$10/month for more and more splintered programming. The sweet spot between massive bundle, massive price (Cable Packages) and "just the content I want for a reasonable price" (netflix, HBO, Disney+) is going to take some figuring out. 100% of nothing is < a 50/50 split of millions of dollars. Lots of these apps are going to realize that.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  I watch a lot of Pluto TV now. It’s like having cable but all totally free and has a PS4 app. Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel is my favorite.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > DirecTV, Comcast, and Netflix are all losing customers. Are there winners in this space Yes, content-owner owned streaming services, and note that both DirecTV and Comcast are (or are owned by) content owners which have or are imminently launching streaming services focussed on first-party content.
- fred_is_fred 7y ago
  Anecdotally my kids would rather watch YouTube, although I've since blocked it in my house for a variety of reasons, they seem to like the shorter video format. And they LOVE watching people play video games which I just want to shake my cane at.
t34543 7y ago
TV is rubbish these days. Not only the last mile delivery but all the content is so watered down it will rot your brain. My two favorite networks Discovery and the History channel are dead. I cut the cord in 2008 over shady billing practices from Comcast. I pay Xfinity for internet because I have to. Never again will I pay for TV.
- moate 7y ago
  I love Cable TV. I think it's all great. Never been better in fact. I love the variety of offerings and how approachable it all is. What do either of our opinions have to do with this article?
  - JaimeThompson 7y ago
    Could be that the decline in quality of the available content has caused people to seek other sources?
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    I find it super frustrating that you were downvoted for expressing your (valid) opinion and questioning what the tangent had to do with the post in question. While everyone else that complained about cable was upvoted. There's a lot of people that, while they do have issues with it, enjoy their cable. You're not alone in your opinion. You are not, however, part of the hive mind; so you get down voted. I'm sorry for that.
- usefulcat 7y ago
  I'm fine with paying for TV that I actually want to watch, but I refuse to pay for anything that contains ads, nor will I usually even consider watching anything with ads even if it's free. Maybe some occasional youtube here and there, but certainly nothing like the the typical 20 minutes of ads in every hour of programming commonly found on broadcast TV and most cable channels.
- deminature 7y ago
  It's stunning how difficult it is to watch Cable TV after watching streaming services for a while. It's hard to believe there was a time that people consumed this many commercials, and didn't think anything of it.
zelon88 7y ago
"...When the Department of Justice tried to stop the merger with Time Warner, AT&T told a judge in a May 2018 court filing that the merger "will enable the merged company to reduce prices." Instead, AT&T raised prices for DirecTV Now multiple times. DirecTV Now currently offers two plans that cost $50 or $70 a month, and the service charges extra for premium networks. AT&T also raised prices for its DirecTV satellite and U-verse TV services in January while simultaneously making it more expensive for customers to cancel TV or Internet service. ..." This should be illegal. I don't mean fines, either. An executive somewhere cooked up a plan to lie to regulators, lie to shareholders, lie to their customer base, and lie to the general public. The only way to make large companies stop acting like they're above the law is to throw some millionaire executives in jail. A regular jail, none of that "bookcase in your cell" shit. Even if the plan didn't come from them. They steer the ship in times of prosperity; they sink with the ship when it goes off course and gets a hole.
- noelherrick 7y ago
  I don’t think jail is the solution to this or many other problems that we imprison people for on a regular basis. I understand the anger at watching someone lie and get away with it, but fines and clawbacks are a great fit for those types of crimes. We really don’t want to pay for someone to go to jail and we don’t want the possibility that they’ll become a repeat offender-which seems more likely if you remove they from family and society.
  - zelon88 7y ago
    We're not talking about a stolen candy bar. Slap the perps wrist and they get the point. Executives will make a dishonest decision knowing the consequences. Then they'll make $100m off the decision, get fined $20m by Uncle Sam, get a $20m golden parachute, and then do it all over again next week. Because it made financial sense to break the law at that time. Fining a billion dollar company because an individual decided to lie is a consequence-less punishment in the same way that stealing a $1 cheeseburger from McDonalds corporate is a victimless crime.
  - ergothus 7y ago
Keverw 7y ago
Not surprised with cord-cutting. I don't watch much TV personally, I rather watch Youtube videos more than the corporate ran tv. For example, the travel channel seems to just have back to back episodes all day of ghost hunting. If I wanted to say travel somewhere, just type it into YouTube and tons of videos and information to help plan. My family watches a lot more TV than me though. Last year we switched from Dish to DirecTV. Before Dish, we just had cable. I noticed going from Cable to Dish their quality of boxes and hardware was so much superior. The guide seemed laggy and slow on cable, while Dish seems awesome. I believe it's because Dish makes their hardware and software themselves, while the local cable company just buys CableLabs compatible equipment running on slow Motorola boxes running Java slapping their logo on the menu but otherwise I don't think the cable company really has much control over the user experience and just relabelling other people's products. I know the boot screen had a huge Java logo, and from my experience running Java based apps on the computer is slow too. We've also switched out boxes and had Scientific Atlanta and Cisco boxes. So haven't been impressed with cable. I'm thinking maybe the cable is more of a commodity now, while satellite has to be more custom. Only 2 satellite companies, multiple cable companies. One's dealing with stuff in space, while the other is dealing with wires buried underground. So I think there's more innovation in the satellite space because it's more complicated. I think everyone can agree it's cool to say there television comes from outer space! Maybe the aliens are watching Honey Boo Boo and judging us all based on that single television show. Probably thinking we're all weirdos and they are the superior species. But to save money we switched to DirecTV, I think they might make their own stuff too but their software quality seems worse than Dish but better than Cable. I know lately half the time it doesn't even record what's scheduled. It's been slightly over a year and my folks are thinking of switching back to cable though. They merged with another cable company, so hoping maybe new subscribers get something newer than before. I think if money wasn't a big deal, I'd rather just pay the extra money and get Dish. So I think i'd rate cable as worse, DirecTV as next best and Dish as the best top of the line, but that's just my personal experience. Maybe cable systems are better in other areas of the country. I know I heard people do that, switch back and forth every year or so for the promotions too. We only have cable for internet and home phone now which works good enough. Back when we lived an hour away with the same company I'd frequently have outages, had the guy come out and adjust the strength he said but the new place seems so much better. He installed an additional jack to separate the TV and modem and said the jack for the modem has a special high-speed data signal, not sure if true or not. My stepdad got cable at his place after not having it for years and was visiting and mentioned about them recommending a separate jack but he told me there's some ordinance against that in that city, unsure if true or not as seems odd to regulate how many cable jacks allowed in a room. I feel like it probably also depends on the community and area too with what installer you get. The old place was a poorer larger city, where the new place is more rural wealthier area popularity with retired people so I doubt they are as busy with calls so maybe can spend more time to set up things the best. I'm interested in full time RVing, so I figured I'd get rooftop Dish dome and get a Verizon hotspot as there are some unlimited plans the RV community recommends. Verizon is the best nationwide network, because law enforcement and emergency personal use them, as they got grants to expand their network I've heard which benefits everyone else too. So not sure how much that would change my internet quality, but something feels better about that. If something messes up, just switch out the hardware as it's wireless. No one has to come out and mess with wiring and other stuff. So I feel a more consistent experience, as I feel like the cable at the old place was screwed up. Probably using the same wiring as when the house was built, while this new area is newer to having cable as many residents had satellite before cable was here. Also probably newer equipment too used on the backend here since newer build-out. After getting cable set up here, never had to see the cable guy again. While at the old house they'd come out monthly sometimes weekly to adjust things. So aggravated. I called one time in the middle of the night staying up on the computer and got hung up on, I don't know if a mistake on their end or maybe the woman thought I was drunk because I was tired. It's like I already knew the routine. Unplug the router, unplug the modem, wait 30 seconds, etc. So sure maybe had a bit of a attitude but felt like no one listened to me or knew what they were doing and didn't have any control. One thing interesting about Satellite though, watching on-demand stuff still uses your internet, connected via the Wi-Fi. I think it'd be cool if storming bad, they could seamlessly switch over getting the same bits over the internet instead of from the satellites. I kinda feel like the cable companies hate the idea of people using their internet for TV instead of actually paying them for TV. just seems so ironic you are helping your competitor deliver video, which is why net neutrality is a great thing. I rather ISPs be dumb pipes or more like highways just to move around the bits. Only internet choices here is cable, DSL from local phone company.. or I guess in theory if had a regular landline instead a VOIP based one(which Cable phone systems are built around, but use their private backbone instead of the public routes) you could still use dial up. Satellite Internet is a option too, but the latency is what kills you. Play a game and your movements has to be sent up to the satellite, down to a ground station hopping around the internet like normal and then beamed back up to the satellite beamed back down to the ground to your house. But i know there's some projects and companies working on improving this space, I'd love if some day great satellite internet comparable to cable so no longer tied to a local provider, and also be useful for RVers too. I know in Florida they actually tax satellite more than cable too, which there's been court battles over. The theory is they don't have as much local infrastructure so they pay less taxes, so they should be taxed more to make up for it than cable. Probably mostly employees at the HQ, installer contractors across the country and a ground station or two somewhere, while cable has employees and equipment all over the place so they pay for all the permits to run the wires, franchised fees, etc.
goldcd 7y ago
TV is dead in the same way CD sales were dead. Anecdotally (yes, just me) - I've built a "whole piracy stack on my NAS" - Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge, NZBGet, Plex, Pushbullet, with paid services for omgwtfnzbs, usenet and oznzb (I bought plex lifetime) - oh and a homerun-HD plugged into a new aerial I just had fitted to my house (pirates don't seem to care about my local UK TV). I also pay for netflix, amazon prime, semi-premium-cable (that also provides my internet) and pay my UK TV license. Maybe 80-90%+ of what I take from "the piracy stack" is available on the "plethora of stuff I pay for". The problem is (as with the early days of music downloads) there's no decent way of wrangling that together into a nice UI to consume from. This is silly. When I realized this was silly, was when I found myself deliberately switching from plex to netflix to watch a show, for the sole reason that "I wanted netflix to know I was watching it and to bump up the viewer count, so they didn't cancel it". Which reminds me.. I'd be fascinated to know if there was a Netflix stat of "existing subscribers that watch a show from episode 2 onwards" Which further reminds me that if anybody ever wishes to sell Helm/K8/docker to the masses, this is the perfect ingress.
- fred_is_fred 7y ago
  > I've built a "whole piracy stack on my NAS" - Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge, NZBGet, Plex, Pushbullet, with paid services for omgwtfnzbs, usenet and oznzb (I bought plex lifetime) - oh and a homerun-HD plugged into a new aerial I just had fitted to my house (pirates don't seem to care about my local UK TV). 99.999% of the people would rather just overpay for cable than deal with that, so it's a far cry from a killer.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    You underestimate the number of people who pirate media. Usenet isn't the only way.
    - fred_is_fred 7y ago
      Lots of people pirate media, but I stand by my percentage. Even in the tech world I literally don't know a single person who wants to deal with that complicated stack. My time is worth $90/month to not have to.
post_break 7y ago
I just signed up with AT&T for fiber internet. I'm one of the lucky ones. $73 a month including taxes for 1000 meg up and down. Unfortunately it's like pick your poison, do you pay Comcast or AT&T. I've got a dish on my house, I'll never use it. I'd take it down if it wasn't so high up.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  In civilized countries people get 1Gb for $20. Then there's the question of why do you need that sort of bandwidth when a 4K video stream only needs 10Mb.
  - post_break 7y ago
    Civilized countries are the size and population of two of the cities in my state. Have you not looked at a map? And 1Gb being symmetrical fiber means I can use my internet as a VPN or let friends and family use my plex server as my own personal netflix, or stream as much of the internet I want and not affect anyone else in my place.
  - verall 7y ago
    4K video stream at 10Mb (mega-bits) would have nutso artifacts. It would look worse than 1080p or 1440p at the same bitrate. _Minimum_ I have seen passable-quality 4K is like 3-4MB/s so around 30Mb. That still looks pretty bad, even on HEVC. Maybe you mean 10MB/s (80Mb)?
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      4K streams on sites like Netflix, YouTube, iTunes are all under or around 15 Mbit/s (and yeah, they look like crap, but when nobody is offering a higher bitrate stream, then that's still all the bandwidth you need) > It would look worse than 1080p or 1440p at the same bitrate Good news then, the 1080p streams are even lower bitrate (4-5 Mbit)
      - verall 7y ago
logfromblammo 7y ago
Anecdotally, our household dropped Dish Network satellite service to go 100% over-the-network. We got Roku boxes and plugged them in to the home router. We picked DirecTV Now as the TV channels provider. Yes, they subsequently raised prices, but we were grandfathered in under the previous plan. It was acceptable. The thing that made us drop it was the slideshow-style insert ads promoting The Last O.G., Teen Titans Go, and one of two other shows on AT&T's own-content channel, accompanied by obnoxious, loud "music". AT&T basically annoyed us into dropping their online television service. All my "told you so" thoughts were of no comfort. I knew AT&T was going to AT&T, and said so, but nobody listened to me, and so they all got to see firsthand why I hate AT&T so much. So we decided to switch to Sling. It took all of ten minutes. AT&T has operated forever on the "no consumer choice" business model as a telecom. If it keeps pulling the same anti-consumer nonsense in a low-friction competitive market, it will die the ultra-slow death of a company that can still barely succeed just because it's too big to fail. And to be honest, we are watching less and less of the broadcast channels, in favor of commercial-free services. The AT&T ad starkly highlighted the sheer number of advertisements that were entering our home via television, because they were all replaced with the most annoying reminder ever conceived. Netflix has no ads. The good tier of Hulu has no ads. Then you can switch over to the television channels and get the same content, only when the channel pushes it, with 1/3 ads.
rubyn00bie 7y ago
Ah, yes, quite interesting result here: monopoly business practices after reducing competition in favor of existing monopoly. People who predicted this? Anyone who has ever bought cable or phone service... FTC and FCC should be up their ass with a fine-tooth comb, scraping out all the shits who are abusing this scale, and throwing them in jail, but alas... they ain't. It's so literally insane to me that Ma Bell, AT&T, is allowed to acquire anything. It's like 2 horcruxes short of a full-blown Voldemort at this point.
olliej 7y ago
“Increase prices” “More profit” “A million people end their subscriptions” Wha??
- ddingus 7y ago
  Then increase prices more! (while offering sweet "come back plz" promos to suck a few back in the family. Maybe some of the smarter bears will set calendar notices for the promo end dates. I did that for years to stay on the lower price tier. Worked, but it was a 6 month hassle. Today, I'm Internet only. Stream some things, but mostly don't care. Too many other interesting things out there.
ddingus 7y ago
These mergers are always about making more money, lower costs. Does anyone honestly believe they won't leverage their more consolidated position every last time? Of course the prices went up. They thought they had a fairly captive audience. And that was more true years ago when the impact of a switch was higher. Today? Great. They got what they deserved.

64 points by furcyd 7y ago

jobu 7y ago

DirecTV, Comcast, and Netflix are all losing customers. Are there winners in this space or are people finding other things to do with their time?

gfs 7y ago
I think some of it could be subscription burnout. All these networks are fragmenting and offering a subset of shows that I want to watch but don't want to pay or keep track of. Plus, I think people get a lot of content via other internet sites too.
- saxonww 7y ago
  This is essentially what people asked Cable for all these years - a la carte service. They wouldn't or couldn't do it, so now we're getting this. There was no way content was going to let third parties basically take the place of Cable at a fraction of the cost. What will be interesting is if we end up with bundlers to combine billing because of subscription burnout and whether it will just be the Cable companies.
  - hakfoo 7y ago
    Aside from billing, some sort of combined UX, browse/search/discovery and platform support would be important. Honestly, I wonder if this is somewhere device manufacturers could get an edge. They already have to build the integrations for their individual platforms, so they could wire them together into an interface which says "I just want to watch Black Lagoon, not worry about whose catalog it's in this week." I wonder if the money people would pay for "the slickest smart TV experience on the market" exceeds the kickback for putting the hard-coded Netflix and Amazon remote buttons, which only serve to reinforce the silos.
ggg3 7y ago
daytime tv is now fully replaced with UGC. people now scrolls instagram/tiktok/etc for hours and hours. so when the vestigial bill changes price, it's enough to call people into action.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  UGC == user generated content?
sdinsn 7y ago
Netflix is not losing customers. They have never had a quarter where they lost customers.
- harshalizee 7y ago
  They just did
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    They lost customers in the US, not customers overall.
- endianswap 7y ago
  They lost US customers in Q2, which is probably what OP is referring to.
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    If that's what he was referring to, he should have said US customers.
- SirensOfTitan 7y ago
  This comment is getting unfairly downvoted. Netflix did not lose customers this past quarter, they added new ones globally. They did lose net customers in the US, though.
meddlin 7y ago
Some people are postulating that subscribers are moving to newer services (i.e. Disney). A slight piracy resurgence is coming around again. A return to the "cable model", but with refined content choice may win out. Already an average sized household subscribing to several services rivals a cheaper cable bill.
- basch 7y ago
  They are moving to a service that isnt released yet? Canceling in preparation. Do you really think most of the US is aware disney has a service coming?
guiomie 7y ago
I think Netflix might be more of a seasonal thing or business readjustment, while Comcast, it's really the end of a business: linear TV.
sjg007 7y ago
I am guessing YouTube and social media.
snarf21 7y ago
It feels like it is what happened with TV and cable. At first there were 30 channels. Years later there are 900 channels. It gets harder to separate the good from the bad and the majority is garbage. Now you also have all these services having exclusives to get lock in. But to get all this top exclusive content, you need to pay for 12 services which is basically back to cable. We really need a new model. Customers would prefer micro-transactions and providers and producers want recurring locked in revenue. Something has to give.
mbreese 7y ago
Netflix was reported as saying that one of their major competitors wasn't the broadcast networks or cable, but rather Fortnite. There are lots of companies that are vying for your attention, and back when the choice was Cable or Cable plus Netflix, it was an easier bet to have Netflix. Now, you have Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, CBS All Access, AMC and FX (I think?) have their own streaming, HBO, SHO, and soon the Mouse is going to have a must have service. And that's not even considering the amount of time people spend on "alternative" forms of entertainment, such as video games. It's all just too much, so I think there will be a lot of churn with Netflix. Instead of getting 12 months of service from Netflix, I think we'll see people hopping around more between 2-3 different services each month.
hbosch 7y ago
YouTube and Twitch are the real winners IMO.
moate 7y ago
Netflix is your outlier in this group. They're probably losing subscribers (in certain locations) because things are fragmenting and every content creator wants to try and start an app right now. Short term (next 5 years) we're probably going to go through a painful adjustment period where CBS keeps trying to make CBS now happen before they realize they should just shut it down and put everything through Hulu. Consumers aren't going to keep paying 8-$10/month for more and more splintered programming. The sweet spot between massive bundle, massive price (Cable Packages) and "just the content I want for a reasonable price" (netflix, HBO, Disney+) is going to take some figuring out. 100% of nothing is < a 50/50 split of millions of dollars. Lots of these apps are going to realize that.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I watch a lot of Pluto TV now. It’s like having cable but all totally free and has a PS4 app. Mystery Science Theater 3000 channel is my favorite.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> DirecTV, Comcast, and Netflix are all losing customers. Are there winners in this space Yes, content-owner owned streaming services, and note that both DirecTV and Comcast are (or are owned by) content owners which have or are imminently launching streaming services focussed on first-party content.
fred_is_fred 7y ago
Anecdotally my kids would rather watch YouTube, although I've since blocked it in my house for a variety of reasons, they seem to like the shorter video format. And they LOVE watching people play video games which I just want to shake my cane at.

t34543 7y ago

TV is rubbish these days. Not only the last mile delivery but all the content is so watered down it will rot your brain. My two favorite networks Discovery and the History channel are dead. I cut the cord in 2008 over shady billing practices from Comcast. I pay Xfinity for internet because I have to. Never again will I pay for TV.

moate 7y ago
I love Cable TV. I think it's all great. Never been better in fact. I love the variety of offerings and how approachable it all is. What do either of our opinions have to do with this article?
- JaimeThompson 7y ago
  Could be that the decline in quality of the available content has caused people to seek other sources?
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  I find it super frustrating that you were downvoted for expressing your (valid) opinion and questioning what the tangent had to do with the post in question. While everyone else that complained about cable was upvoted. There's a lot of people that, while they do have issues with it, enjoy their cable. You're not alone in your opinion. You are not, however, part of the hive mind; so you get down voted. I'm sorry for that.
usefulcat 7y ago
I'm fine with paying for TV that I actually want to watch, but I refuse to pay for anything that contains ads, nor will I usually even consider watching anything with ads even if it's free. Maybe some occasional youtube here and there, but certainly nothing like the the typical 20 minutes of ads in every hour of programming commonly found on broadcast TV and most cable channels.
deminature 7y ago
It's stunning how difficult it is to watch Cable TV after watching streaming services for a while. It's hard to believe there was a time that people consumed this many commercials, and didn't think anything of it.

zelon88 7y ago

"...When the Department of Justice tried to stop the merger with Time Warner, AT&T told a judge in a May 2018 court filing that the merger "will enable the merged company to reduce prices." Instead, AT&T raised prices for DirecTV Now multiple times. DirecTV Now currently offers two plans that cost $50 or $70 a month, and the service charges extra for premium networks. AT&T also raised prices for its DirecTV satellite and U-verse TV services in January while simultaneously making it more expensive for customers to cancel TV or Internet service. ..." This should be illegal. I don't mean fines, either. An executive somewhere cooked up a plan to lie to regulators, lie to shareholders, lie to their customer base, and lie to the general public. The only way to make large companies stop acting like they're above the law is to throw some millionaire executives in jail. A regular jail, none of that "bookcase in your cell" shit. Even if the plan didn't come from them. They steer the ship in times of prosperity; they sink with the ship when it goes off course and gets a hole.

noelherrick 7y ago
I don’t think jail is the solution to this or many other problems that we imprison people for on a regular basis. I understand the anger at watching someone lie and get away with it, but fines and clawbacks are a great fit for those types of crimes. We really don’t want to pay for someone to go to jail and we don’t want the possibility that they’ll become a repeat offender-which seems more likely if you remove they from family and society.
- zelon88 7y ago
  We're not talking about a stolen candy bar. Slap the perps wrist and they get the point. Executives will make a dishonest decision knowing the consequences. Then they'll make $100m off the decision, get fined $20m by Uncle Sam, get a $20m golden parachute, and then do it all over again next week. Because it made financial sense to break the law at that time. Fining a billion dollar company because an individual decided to lie is a consequence-less punishment in the same way that stealing a $1 cheeseburger from McDonalds corporate is a victimless crime.
- ergothus 7y ago

Keverw 7y ago

Not surprised with cord-cutting. I don't watch much TV personally, I rather watch Youtube videos more than the corporate ran tv. For example, the travel channel seems to just have back to back episodes all day of ghost hunting. If I wanted to say travel somewhere, just type it into YouTube and tons of videos and information to help plan. My family watches a lot more TV than me though. Last year we switched from Dish to DirecTV. Before Dish, we just had cable. I noticed going from Cable to Dish their quality of boxes and hardware was so much superior. The guide seemed laggy and slow on cable, while Dish seems awesome. I believe it's because Dish makes their hardware and software themselves, while the local cable company just buys CableLabs compatible equipment running on slow Motorola boxes running Java slapping their logo on the menu but otherwise I don't think the cable company really has much control over the user experience and just relabelling other people's products. I know the boot screen had a huge Java logo, and from my experience running Java based apps on the computer is slow too. We've also switched out boxes and had Scientific Atlanta and Cisco boxes. So haven't been impressed with cable. I'm thinking maybe the cable is more of a commodity now, while satellite has to be more custom. Only 2 satellite companies, multiple cable companies. One's dealing with stuff in space, while the other is dealing with wires buried underground. So I think there's more innovation in the satellite space because it's more complicated. I think everyone can agree it's cool to say there television comes from outer space! Maybe the aliens are watching Honey Boo Boo and judging us all based on that single television show. Probably thinking we're all weirdos and they are the superior species. But to save money we switched to DirecTV, I think they might make their own stuff too but their software quality seems worse than Dish but better than Cable. I know lately half the time it doesn't even record what's scheduled. It's been slightly over a year and my folks are thinking of switching back to cable though. They merged with another cable company, so hoping maybe new subscribers get something newer than before. I think if money wasn't a big deal, I'd rather just pay the extra money and get Dish. So I think i'd rate cable as worse, DirecTV as next best and Dish as the best top of the line, but that's just my personal experience. Maybe cable systems are better in other areas of the country. I know I heard people do that, switch back and forth every year or so for the promotions too. We only have cable for internet and home phone now which works good enough. Back when we lived an hour away with the same company I'd frequently have outages, had the guy come out and adjust the strength he said but the new place seems so much better. He installed an additional jack to separate the TV and modem and said the jack for the modem has a special high-speed data signal, not sure if true or not. My stepdad got cable at his place after not having it for years and was visiting and mentioned about them recommending a separate jack but he told me there's some ordinance against that in that city, unsure if true or not as seems odd to regulate how many cable jacks allowed in a room. I feel like it probably also depends on the community and area too with what installer you get. The old place was a poorer larger city, where the new place is more rural wealthier area popularity with retired people so I doubt they are as busy with calls so maybe can spend more time to set up things the best. I'm interested in full time RVing, so I figured I'd get rooftop Dish dome and get a Verizon hotspot as there are some unlimited plans the RV community recommends. Verizon is the best nationwide network, because law enforcement and emergency personal use them, as they got grants to expand their network I've heard which benefits everyone else too. So not sure how much that would change my internet quality, but something feels better about that. If something messes up, just switch out the hardware as it's wireless. No one has to come out and mess with wiring and other stuff. So I feel a more consistent experience, as I feel like the cable at the old place was screwed up. Probably using the same wiring as when the house was built, while this new area is newer to having cable as many residents had satellite before cable was here. Also probably newer equipment too used on the backend here since newer build-out. After getting cable set up here, never had to see the cable guy again. While at the old house they'd come out monthly sometimes weekly to adjust things. So aggravated. I called one time in the middle of the night staying up on the computer and got hung up on, I don't know if a mistake on their end or maybe the woman thought I was drunk because I was tired. It's like I already knew the routine. Unplug the router, unplug the modem, wait 30 seconds, etc. So sure maybe had a bit of a attitude but felt like no one listened to me or knew what they were doing and didn't have any control. One thing interesting about Satellite though, watching on-demand stuff still uses your internet, connected via the Wi-Fi. I think it'd be cool if storming bad, they could seamlessly switch over getting the same bits over the internet instead of from the satellites. I kinda feel like the cable companies hate the idea of people using their internet for TV instead of actually paying them for TV. just seems so ironic you are helping your competitor deliver video, which is why net neutrality is a great thing. I rather ISPs be dumb pipes or more like highways just to move around the bits. Only internet choices here is cable, DSL from local phone company.. or I guess in theory if had a regular landline instead a VOIP based one(which Cable phone systems are built around, but use their private backbone instead of the public routes) you could still use dial up. Satellite Internet is a option too, but the latency is what kills you. Play a game and your movements has to be sent up to the satellite, down to a ground station hopping around the internet like normal and then beamed back up to the satellite beamed back down to the ground to your house. But i know there's some projects and companies working on improving this space, I'd love if some day great satellite internet comparable to cable so no longer tied to a local provider, and also be useful for RVers too. I know in Florida they actually tax satellite more than cable too, which there's been court battles over. The theory is they don't have as much local infrastructure so they pay less taxes, so they should be taxed more to make up for it than cable. Probably mostly employees at the HQ, installer contractors across the country and a ground station or two somewhere, while cable has employees and equipment all over the place so they pay for all the permits to run the wires, franchised fees, etc.

goldcd 7y ago

TV is dead in the same way CD sales were dead. Anecdotally (yes, just me) - I've built a "whole piracy stack on my NAS" - Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge, NZBGet, Plex, Pushbullet, with paid services for omgwtfnzbs, usenet and oznzb (I bought plex lifetime) - oh and a homerun-HD plugged into a new aerial I just had fitted to my house (pirates don't seem to care about my local UK TV). I also pay for netflix, amazon prime, semi-premium-cable (that also provides my internet) and pay my UK TV license. Maybe 80-90%+ of what I take from "the piracy stack" is available on the "plethora of stuff I pay for". The problem is (as with the early days of music downloads) there's no decent way of wrangling that together into a nice UI to consume from. This is silly. When I realized this was silly, was when I found myself deliberately switching from plex to netflix to watch a show, for the sole reason that "I wanted netflix to know I was watching it and to bump up the viewer count, so they didn't cancel it". Which reminds me.. I'd be fascinated to know if there was a Netflix stat of "existing subscribers that watch a show from episode 2 onwards" Which further reminds me that if anybody ever wishes to sell Helm/K8/docker to the masses, this is the perfect ingress.

fred_is_fred 7y ago
> I've built a "whole piracy stack on my NAS" - Sonarr, Radarr, Deluge, NZBGet, Plex, Pushbullet, with paid services for omgwtfnzbs, usenet and oznzb (I bought plex lifetime) - oh and a homerun-HD plugged into a new aerial I just had fitted to my house (pirates don't seem to care about my local UK TV). 99.999% of the people would rather just overpay for cable than deal with that, so it's a far cry from a killer.
- driverdan 7y ago
  You underestimate the number of people who pirate media. Usenet isn't the only way.
  - fred_is_fred 7y ago
    Lots of people pirate media, but I stand by my percentage. Even in the tech world I literally don't know a single person who wants to deal with that complicated stack. My time is worth $90/month to not have to.

post_break 7y ago

I just signed up with AT&T for fiber internet. I'm one of the lucky ones. $73 a month including taxes for 1000 meg up and down. Unfortunately it's like pick your poison, do you pay Comcast or AT&T. I've got a dish on my house, I'll never use it. I'd take it down if it wasn't so high up.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
In civilized countries people get 1Gb for $20. Then there's the question of why do you need that sort of bandwidth when a 4K video stream only needs 10Mb.
- post_break 7y ago
  Civilized countries are the size and population of two of the cities in my state. Have you not looked at a map? And 1Gb being symmetrical fiber means I can use my internet as a VPN or let friends and family use my plex server as my own personal netflix, or stream as much of the internet I want and not affect anyone else in my place.
- verall 7y ago
  4K video stream at 10Mb (mega-bits) would have nutso artifacts. It would look worse than 1080p or 1440p at the same bitrate. _Minimum_ I have seen passable-quality 4K is like 3-4MB/s so around 30Mb. That still looks pretty bad, even on HEVC. Maybe you mean 10MB/s (80Mb)?
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    4K streams on sites like Netflix, YouTube, iTunes are all under or around 15 Mbit/s (and yeah, they look like crap, but when nobody is offering a higher bitrate stream, then that's still all the bandwidth you need) > It would look worse than 1080p or 1440p at the same bitrate Good news then, the 1080p streams are even lower bitrate (4-5 Mbit)
    - verall 7y ago

logfromblammo 7y ago

Anecdotally, our household dropped Dish Network satellite service to go 100% over-the-network. We got Roku boxes and plugged them in to the home router. We picked DirecTV Now as the TV channels provider. Yes, they subsequently raised prices, but we were grandfathered in under the previous plan. It was acceptable. The thing that made us drop it was the slideshow-style insert ads promoting The Last O.G., Teen Titans Go, and one of two other shows on AT&T's own-content channel, accompanied by obnoxious, loud "music". AT&T basically annoyed us into dropping their online television service. All my "told you so" thoughts were of no comfort. I knew AT&T was going to AT&T, and said so, but nobody listened to me, and so they all got to see firsthand why I hate AT&T so much. So we decided to switch to Sling. It took all of ten minutes. AT&T has operated forever on the "no consumer choice" business model as a telecom. If it keeps pulling the same anti-consumer nonsense in a low-friction competitive market, it will die the ultra-slow death of a company that can still barely succeed just because it's too big to fail. And to be honest, we are watching less and less of the broadcast channels, in favor of commercial-free services. The AT&T ad starkly highlighted the sheer number of advertisements that were entering our home via television, because they were all replaced with the most annoying reminder ever conceived. Netflix has no ads. The good tier of Hulu has no ads. Then you can switch over to the television channels and get the same content, only when the channel pushes it, with 1/3 ads.

rubyn00bie 7y ago

Ah, yes, quite interesting result here: monopoly business practices after reducing competition in favor of existing monopoly. People who predicted this? Anyone who has ever bought cable or phone service... FTC and FCC should be up their ass with a fine-tooth comb, scraping out all the shits who are abusing this scale, and throwing them in jail, but alas... they ain't. It's so literally insane to me that Ma Bell, AT&T, is allowed to acquire anything. It's like 2 horcruxes short of a full-blown Voldemort at this point.

olliej 7y ago

“Increase prices” “More profit” “A million people end their subscriptions” Wha??

ddingus 7y ago
Then increase prices more! (while offering sweet "come back plz" promos to suck a few back in the family. Maybe some of the smarter bears will set calendar notices for the promo end dates. I did that for years to stay on the lower price tier. Worked, but it was a 6 month hassle. Today, I'm Internet only. Stream some things, but mostly don't care. Too many other interesting things out there.

ddingus 7y ago

These mergers are always about making more money, lower costs. Does anyone honestly believe they won't leverage their more consolidated position every last time? Of course the prices went up. They thought they had a fairly captive audience. And that was more true years ago when the impact of a switch was higher. Today? Great. They got what they deserved.