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> How much TV do you watch a day? Just a side comment, 'watching TV' today when TVs and monitors are common and cheap is different from 'watching TV' 20-30+ ye

> How much TV do you watch a day? Just a side comment, 'watching TV' today when TVs and monitors are common and cheap is different from 'watching TV' 20-30+ years ago, when TVs were more of a luxury good (I know displays still aren't free but they're much more accessible than they used to be). It's common for people to have netflix on in the background while doing things (e.g. studying, netflix and chill), to have netflix on a secondary monitor while gaming, to fall asleep to, etc. People probably don't 'watch' TV in the sense of sitting down and just staring at the screen like they used to, but they still 'watch' a lot of TV in the sense of having it on. From that perspective, it's easy to imagine someone watching 8+ hours of netflix a day: auto-playing sitcoms in the background during chores or studying, switching to a favorite show to watch during meals, binging multiple episodes or seasons of a new show on weekends, etc. That would rack up the cost quick using your pay-per-show model

logifail 6y ago
> 'watching TV' today when TVs and monitors are common and cheap is different from 'watching TV' 20-30+ years ago, when TVs were more of a luxury good [..] Source? Today, people seem to spend a significant amount of money on purchasing an expensive (large) TV. They then spend even more money on subscription services for content to watch on their TV. Rewind 30+ years (when I was young): TVs were small, and the number of channels was too. No-one paid per month for access to channels. You watched what was being broadcast live, or you drove to Blockbuster and rented a tape. I don't recall that being considered "luxury".
- silicon2401 6y ago
  Maybe it wasn't a luxury for you, but for me and the people where I lived growing up TVs were much more of a luxury than they are today. People practically give away monitors and TVs, especially if they're old or small. Add in laptop and phone screens, and you have even more displays for 'watching TV'. If a poor family has an old phone per person and one TV, that's easily more than most families would've had when I was growing up, which was often 0-1 TVs for the whole household. To tie it back to my original point, people can afford more screens than the equivalent people could've afforded 20-30 years ago. This makes it easier to have netflix on in the background, whereas back in the day it would've been more of an active activity

logifail 6y ago

> 'watching TV' today when TVs and monitors are common and cheap is different from 'watching TV' 20-30+ years ago, when TVs were more of a luxury good [..] Source? Today, people seem to spend a significant amount of money on purchasing an expensive (large) TV. They then spend even more money on subscription services for content to watch on their TV. Rewind 30+ years (when I was young): TVs were small, and the number of channels was too. No-one paid per month for access to channels. You watched what was being broadcast live, or you drove to Blockbuster and rented a tape. I don't recall that being considered "luxury".

silicon2401 6y ago
Maybe it wasn't a luxury for you, but for me and the people where I lived growing up TVs were much more of a luxury than they are today. People practically give away monitors and TVs, especially if they're old or small. Add in laptop and phone screens, and you have even more displays for 'watching TV'. If a poor family has an old phone per person and one TV, that's easily more than most families would've had when I was growing up, which was often 0-1 TVs for the whole household. To tie it back to my original point, people can afford more screens than the equivalent people could've afforded 20-30 years ago. This makes it easier to have netflix on in the background, whereas back in the day it would've been more of an active activity