Honestly, I don't see how people find the time for it. Between work, keeping up my home, and spending time with my wife, I already feel like I don't have any spare time.

Of course Charter in their infinite wisdom decided that they were going to cut of my "cable" which means TV AND Internet. The level of incompetence of ISPs have reached these days is mind boggling.

It may be just my own selection bias, but it seems to me that the best TV shows are getting progressively better - by which I mean more connected rather than episodic, as well as smart and content-dense enough to hold up under repeat viewings. This may be a response to the increase in the ratio of home library : broadcast viewings.

On the other hand, I've also noticed that embedded advertising seems to be getting more common. In an episode of How I Met Your Mother, the credits identify Cadillac as a sponsor after one character calls another "the Cadillac of rebound guys".

Has it already been a decade?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...

Don't be the crazy hobo outside the bar.

Just from 4 days ago, front-page:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850998

The current industry trends are not actually people leaving cable all together (though that did happen last quarter but in relatively minor amounts). The scariest thing for the cable operators is people backing off of their premium offerings. People aren't going to pay $10 an month extra for Showtime if they can just buy a season Dexter on Amazon for ~$25.

People love their TV (average 2.5 hours per day watched in the US) they're just finding new ways to get it.

Multitasking seems to become the predominant usage model. Americans use media on average for twelve hours per day, that wouldn’t be possible if they weren’t using some things at the same time.

That said, until the NCAA and NFL are willing to provide a stand-alone service that lets me subscribe to Georgia Tech and Atlanta Falcons football games, the whole concept of ditching cable is a non-starter for me. Since I'm no longer local to Atlanta, I have to have an option for viewing. ESPN3 is great for NCAA games but requires a partner cable subscription. I still usually resort to finding illegal streams of falcons games online since I have literally no other option.

I recognize that HN might not be a bastion of football fans; but having grown up in Atlanta, GA, football is a part of fall that I'm just not willing to go without.

Live sports are really the last stronghold that cable & satellite have.

There's a whole slew of shows which would whither and die without a cable subscription model.

Think Food Network or Discovery or any show which isn't a serialized story model. Would you actually buy a season of Mythbusters?* I watch those shows all the time, but usually when I'm just browsing. I'm not sure I'd actually buy them ala carte.

BTW NFL and NCAA aren't holding out on streaming. The rights to internet broadcast games are tied to their traditional cable and broadcast deals with cable providers and the Comcasts and TWCs of the world are locking in those restrictions. MLB is the only one who kept their streaming rights.

* Note I'm not saying no one would - but I don't think enough people would

I understand you, I only get cable TV for NBA finals. Then I cancel it again :) On a big TV, ESPN3 is not always great enough quality.

Here's hoping ad buys on Hulu continue to remain so expensive that politicians can't get in on it.

When my, then, fiance and I bought our house, we never bothered to get it connected because we were going to be travelling so much to MI with wedding stuff.

We just never hooked it back up. About 2 years ago, I built out a mythtv server and hooked it up to an OTA antennae for local content. The rest of the stuff we would "acquire" and then buy the DVD box sets when they came out. We also had Netflix.

Now, with Netflix streaming, we rarely watch anything except what MythTV has picked up (usually PBS shows for the kids) and whatever's available on Netflix. We listen to UofM games during football season over the internet.

Setup: Acer Aspire Revo - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225756 £300 + Loaded with Boxee + Proxied to an old laptop at my parents house in the US

Services I use: 1. NFL overseas Gamepass package (~$250 for whole season) - every game in full HD (yes literally just as good as watching it on cable HDTV...NO JOKE) 2. Hulu (via proxy) 3. Netflix (via proxy) 4. BBC (awesome programming) -> BBC iPlayer

Seeing as I am 6hrs ahead of them I'm not really concerned about bandwidth stealing of theirs ;)

Each time I see things like this, I can't believe people don't seem to see the irony. People now do this with twitter, reddit, facebook etc. Even Hacker news has its fair share of gossipy rumour "Mike doesn't like Jason any more!". It's even worse than TV. We're turning society into school kid gossip mill mob rule idiots.

It's like the people who laugh and mock people who get most of their news from Fox news, and then get most of their own news from Reddit and the daily show.

Whilst the internet has replaced TV for a lot of society, is that actually a good thing? Is the internet really that much better for society than TV? I'd argue that on balance, no it's not. You get hyperbole stories everywhere. A large amount of Reddit type websites etc is "You should be outraged by this!!! (Until tomorrow by which time you'll have forgotten)".

The argument about TV will vary massively with where you live though. I'm in the UK, and would happily pay the BBC a far higher license fee, simply because the quality of programing they put out is fantastic. They even employ real journalists who investigate, ask tough questions and provide balanced information. (We do not have any of that sermonistic preaching that seems to happen all too often in the US which personally creeps me out)

The issue with cable tv and news is that many still rely on it to keep up to date on current events. The portrayal of current events is sinister.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...