It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but customers are losing

Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by majormajor on Friday November 19, 2021 @02:56PM (#29281544)

True, the edge case of "I want TV but not internet" users are not in a great place to access streaming content. They still have all their existing cable content, though, at least? And in 2001, good chance they were already paying for internet back then too.

I don't think it's realistic to assume "no internet" is a standard default these days, though, regardless of if/how you watch TV.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by _jal on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:20PM (#29281869)

I'm the opposite. I want "internet but not TV". If you're in Comcast land, you'll pay for cable either way.

> I don't think it's realistic to assume "no internet" is a standard default these days

About 1 in 6 US households has no internet access, nowhere near a small enough number to start rolling up alternatives.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by ghaff on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:25PM (#29281930)

Not sure I understand. I pay Comcast for Internet but dropped both cable TV and landline a couple years ago and cut the bill in about half.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by margalabargala on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:35PM (#29282084)

Do you have more details or a source on this? I'm wondering if the 1 in 6 is no centralized household internet, or no access whatsoever e.g. via a smartphone with a data plan.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by _jal on Friday November 19, 2021 @04:25PM (#29282725)

The info I'm thinking of came from a Pew report that went around work, I'm not finding that on the public internet. There is this, which comes up with a similar number:

https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-united-states-...

That also claims:

"The number of mobile connections in the United States of America in January 2020 was equivalent to 107% of the total population."

I'm not sure how to disaggregate that to humans. I do personally have more than one device with a data plan, although I'm not sure how typical that is.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by readflaggedcomm on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:28PM (#29281964)

That's not my experience with decades of different Comcast subscriptions in one city.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by HWR_14 on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:00PM (#29281596)

It's not "no internet". It's "low bandwidth" internet. If it wasn't for streaming or downloading OS updates, would most people need fast internet?

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by majormajor on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:08PM (#29281702)

What do you mean by low bandwidth? 56K dialup? 1.5Mbps DSL? 10Mbit?

Streaming only was able to take off because broadband (back then this wouldn't even have been that much, >~2Mbps) was already widespread. So I'd say yes, nobody liked waiting for slow connections.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by lotsofpulp on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:32PM (#29282030)

Yes? HD video calls and backing up your personal media. Even an old person can benefit from high upload being able to do a remote doctor visit with an HD camera.

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Re:It's hard to say who's winning the streaming wars, but cu... by sokoloff on Friday November 19, 2021 @03:10PM (#29281715)

Most people working from home (or remote schooling, even occasionally) would need more than low bandwidth internet.

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