I think the point was more that entertainment isn't really a necessity at all, even if its a 'good value'. If entertainment is in fact a necessity, most public libraries offer an immense amount of choices of physical and digital media available for free.

Nah, entertainment is a necessity, but that doesn't necessarily mean that any given choice of entertainment is a cost-effective choice of entertainment.

Just focusing on TV, for starters there's free TV over the air. There's YouTube and Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and CuriosityStream and Hulu and whatever your local state-supported TV network is putting online for free, there's DVDs from your public library, etc. etc. No, these options won't let you catch the latest Game of Thrones episode as soon as it airs, but they'll keep you entertained.

If you really want to get nitty-gritty about it, there is at least an interesting thought experiment you can run where someone who's both living paycheck to paycheck and paying for a sizable cable TV package has, intentionally or not, chosen, say, ESPN over financial solvency. Because that cable TV bill could be converted into a steadily growing rainy day fund.

Just because it's cheap doesn't mean there aren't cheaper alternatives. Most people could easily replace that with a netflix subscription for $13, since they already have an internet connection.

Yeah, but then the cable companies will charge you anything over 1TB. And if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up, so the cable company will relax that cap IF you also buy cable TV. Remember cable companies are assholes.

> if you have more than 2 screens, because of kids, it will add up

I download and seed hundreds of GB's a month of torrents and run a couple cryptocurrency nodes in a household of 4 where everyone uses youtube, netflix, and spotify often and we've broken 1TB once in a decade..

Meanwhile, some roommates and I hit 1TB in a week in a 4 person household. After quickly switching to an unlimited plan, some data accounting showed almost 80% of that came from the three game consoles playing online (fast connection = you're always the host in Destiny 2 apparently).

What I'm saying is YMMV. I bet you'd see different results if one or two of your housemates turned on 4K on youtube/netflix.

I'm not too convinced.

Let's assume we devote 70% of the 1TB cap to streaming (netflix, youtube, etc.). This leaves 300GB for anything else, which be more than enough. Using netfilx's highest bitrate for 1080p, we get 268 hours of content for 700 GB. At the highest bitrate for 720p, we get 518 hours of content. Dividing that by 30 days, we get 8.9 and 17.3 hours per day for 1080p and 720p respectively. 8.9 hours split among two screens (one for kids and one for adults) might be tight if they don't have anything else to do, but 17.3 hours sounds more than enough if the kids are in school and the adults are employed full-time.

Blowing through 1 terabyte in a month sounds pretty difficult. You have to do lot of steaming to use that much.

People could also replace it all with a free library card.

It isn't like television/video is some kind of necessity for life.

> People could also replace it all with a free library card

Going to the library takes a whole hell of a lot more time and work than turning on your TV.

Borrow a stack of books/CDs/etc at once.

Not if you count the 30-40% of the time you waste watching commercials, vs one trip to the library for a stack of books.

It only counts as cheap if the value of those 4 hours/day of sedentary activity is greater than $4. Many would argue that it is not. But I understand you're saying that relative to other forms of entertainment it's "cheap", I'm just questioning the price relative to the value of the product itself.

Also, I know a lot of people argue that watching TV can maybe relieve stress in some way, or allow them to "wind down" after a "long day" at "work", but I'm not sure you need to wind down for four hours (not saying you are saying that).

Huh?

Books, sports, art, music, are all way cheaper forms of entertaining oneself.

Most hobbies or entertainment don't have a charge per hour.

Almost everyone I know who considers music a hobby ends up spending a pretty good penny on it once they really get into it. It can easily be one of the most expensive hobbies someone has (it is for me at least). Once you've learned the basics, half of the fun is collaborating with others or recording.

Costs:

- Instruments & accessories (serious guitar players often have at least one acoustic and one electric - and good quality ones are going to be at least $500, but could go way higher. Other accessories: at least a metronome and tuner, potentially also some pedals, amps, drum machine, etc)

- Renting/owning/traveling to a practice space if playing in a group

- Educational material: Lessons, Books, sheet music, music apps

- Recording / mixing equipment

Sure you can get a used acoustic guitar and watch youtube videos to learn it - but I don't know many people who do that and stick to it.

The real up-side though, is that decent musical gear doesn't lose a ton of value over time unless it gets broken or stolen. Also, if you're not professional, you can pace out your purchases.

My personal collection grew over 10 years, and is just for amateur use, jamming with friends mostly. I've got a couple guitars, bass, keyboard, 2 banjos, amps and mics. When I add up everything I've spent, it was probably 2/3 the cost of 10 years of $100/mo cable. I wasted a decent portion of that cost on a few other instruments I never played and ending up giving away as gifts to friends though.

I think the charge per hour aspect reflects the amortised cost of engaging in the activity.

Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’

Mind sports like chess have an insanely low hourly cost, but regular sports that involve consumables like trainers have an hourly cost.

Music is free if you sing, but otherwise involves buying and maintaining an instrument. Strings, for example are consumables.

>Books can be free if borrowed from a library - but ownership has an ‘hourly cost’

Even the library has a cost, but it is generally much much lower if you have good access to a library.

Most hobbies have a cost and time length of enjoyment and thus you can determine how much you are spending per hour of enjoyment.

Movies is like $25 an hour, though skipping concessions and going to a cheaper theater can bring it down to under $10 an hour.

A short video game (assuming full price release day) is like $7 an hour. (Cost is higher if you play games less because the upfront cost of the system is split over fewer games).

A long video game is goes from $2 an hour to $.50 an hour, and can go much cheaper for games you enjoy for extremely long times.

Books for me are around $2 to $.50 an hour ($20 book that last 10 hours to a $10 book that lasts as long). Libraries make all of this much much cheaper if you have one.

I actually read a lot of web novels/fan fiction which are generally free and thus my only cost is for the internet access that I'm paying for anyways.

Sports can be a lot harder to measure because there is a large variance in the costs depending on numerous factors, but I would assume they aren't that much cheaper (though generally much healthier for you).

I find art, especially for anything that is above crayola level brand, is quite a bit more expensive. So for kids it is cheap, but for adults who spend any serious amount of time in it, the costs go up pretty fast.

So in comparison, $1 an hour for TV isn't bad, but it is filled with ads. So many ads I personally refrain from TV.

library books are essentially free. They pay dividends if you read something that imparts a skill instead of being brainwashed and dumbed down by TV you pay for.

Pretty much every free to play game is cheaper (however it is designed to drive you nuts and spend money on useless things).

Less than $1/hour if you have a family.

It’s still 100 dollars you don’t have for car repair.