I personally don't watch a lot of TV, and didn't have cable channels until earlier this year. I went for one of the largest packages available, because the channels that seemed of interest to me are split up. I watch Fox Sports Midwest during Baseball season, Animal Planet, History, Discovery, HBO, and my local broadcasters. Every now and again I'll watch a Random channel, but that isn't that frequent. I have an over hundred dollar TV bill, for what equates out to be 5 channels.
Also it ignores a few facts. Namely that on average UK internet connections blow US connections out of the water on speed, to where their norm is closer to our average top?end, or even faster yet.
Also the very top end of anything can only be afforded by a minority until price comes down (by then it no longer is the top end, and just replaces the lower level offerings). So rather than thinking "only 6.6% of brits have the fastest offered, so it means the others cannot get it for one reason or another" he takes it as "the majority doesn't need or want it, thus not worth the effort to try and offer it"
Since when does adding restrictions stop piracy? Why pay the $20 a month or what ever for HBO then all the additional charges for the streaming when you get locked out when you can pirate it for free? You want piracy to stop? Give affordable options that are on par with what the pirates offer. Right now, they are not.
This really hits the nail on the head. Look at Xbox Live vs PSN. XBL is $60 a year and has more ads than PSN, which is free. I still have my 360, but don't pay for XBL gold access anymore. I get games i plan on playing online on PS3, and keep the 360 for the exclusives, like Kinect.
I'm in this group. in the house I lived in until I was 20, it would have cost $10,000 to install cable, because cable service stopped at the beginning of my street, and they wanted to install a full trunk down my street incase others wanted to join in. Problem is, they wanted the first person to sign up for cable to foot the entire cost, and even if they split the cost among everyone, there were at total of 3 houses on the road that was about a 1000 feet long, so it would have still been prohibitively expensive. We also never got satellite, didn't feel it was worth the expense for the amount of TV we watched. After I moved, I didn't have a lot of money, so I either could get cable/satellite, or get internet. I picked 'net. I am perfectly fine with not having cable. For years now, I've had a computer, or some other net capable device hooked up to a TV, to stream video, and will continue to do so.
The thing with this whole first to file deal is that it should be fairly easy for patent trolls to start applying for random patents. With how loose the patent system is now, they probably could get patents on things that aren't even proven possible yet. Or hell, pay some grunt in a lab for what their betters are working on, patent it while they're still working out the finer details, and bam, sue 'em as soon as they bring it to market.
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I disagree
I personally don't watch a lot of TV, and didn't have cable channels until earlier this year. I went for one of the largest packages available, because the channels that seemed of interest to me are split up. I watch Fox Sports Midwest during Baseball season, Animal Planet, History, Discovery, HBO, and my local broadcasters. Every now and again I'll watch a Random channel, but that isn't that frequent. I have an over hundred dollar TV bill, for what equates out to be 5 channels.
Also it ignores a few facts. Namely that on average UK internet connections blow US connections out of the water on speed, to where their norm is closer to our average top?end, or even faster yet.
Also the very top end of anything can only be afforded by a minority until price comes down (by then it no longer is the top end, and just replaces the lower level offerings). So rather than thinking "only 6.6% of brits have the fastest offered, so it means the others cannot get it for one reason or another" he takes it as "the majority doesn't need or want it, thus not worth the effort to try and offer it"
WTF
Since when does adding restrictions stop piracy? Why pay the $20 a month or what ever for HBO then all the additional charges for the streaming when you get locked out when you can pirate it for free? You want piracy to stop? Give affordable options that are on par with what the pirates offer. Right now, they are not.
one isn't any better
This really hits the nail on the head. Look at Xbox Live vs PSN. XBL is $60 a year and has more ads than PSN, which is free. I still have my 360, but don't pay for XBL gold access anymore. I get games i plan on playing online on PS3, and keep the 360 for the exclusives, like Kinect.
Re: Cord-nevers
I'm in this group. in the house I lived in until I was 20, it would have cost $10,000 to install cable, because cable service stopped at the beginning of my street, and they wanted to install a full trunk down my street incase others wanted to join in. Problem is, they wanted the first person to sign up for cable to foot the entire cost, and even if they split the cost among everyone, there were at total of 3 houses on the road that was about a 1000 feet long, so it would have still been prohibitively expensive. We also never got satellite, didn't feel it was worth the expense for the amount of TV we watched. After I moved, I didn't have a lot of money, so I either could get cable/satellite, or get internet. I picked 'net. I am perfectly fine with not having cable. For years now, I've had a computer, or some other net capable device hooked up to a TV, to stream video, and will continue to do so.
More ways for trolls to profit
The thing with this whole first to file deal is that it should be fairly easy for patent trolls to start applying for random patents. With how loose the patent system is now, they probably could get patents on things that aren't even proven possible yet. Or hell, pay some grunt in a lab for what their betters are working on, patent it while they're still working out the finer details, and bam, sue 'em as soon as they bring it to market.