Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall • Hacker News Board

Re: Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall

#21

Post by jrockway » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 11:46 PM UTC

This makes no sense. All of Fox's shows are available DRM-free over the air, broadcast directly into your skull via the power of radio. And, they're usually uploaded to The Usual File Sharing Places Whose Names I Will Not Mention within hours of being broadcast.

So once again, they are trying to push people to piracy so they can blame the dirty old pirates when nobody buys their shitty pay-extra-money-to-watch-ad-encumbered-shows-on-our-website service. Then there will be another round of laws mandating that we implant anti-priacy chips into all of our children to protect them from pedophiles. The G.O.D.I.S.G.R.E.A.T. Act they'll call it.

Every time I read an article about Big Content I fantasize about being killed by an errant meteor. Why can't I pay $1 to download a DRM-and-ad-free episode of The Simpsons?

Re: Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall

#22

Post by kin » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 11:48 PM UTC

This doesn't change how I currently do things but the move disappoint me. I want to watch things when they air and conveniently. It is inconvenient to pay $50 a month for cable + $10 for an HD box + $10 to watch it when I want to. It is convenient to pay $4 a month for a Usenet account and DL the latest episode in under 5 minutes and either stream it to my TV or play it off a USB or even just on my laptop.

I use my parent's HBO Go subscription which lets me stream their entire catalogue including new releases after it airs. HBO gets $15 a month from my parents for their subscription and I would gladly pay $15 a month for HBO-only On-Demand streaming.

If other companies followed suit, I would subscribe. I will pay $5 a month to subscribe to a show or $10 a month to subscribe to a channel. Yes, it can add up to be the same price as cable, but at least it's convenient and at least I'll have a choice of content.

Am I alone here?

Re: Fox challenges cord-cutters by sticking TV shows behind paywall

#23

Post by click170 » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 12:34 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #3

Well, back to The Pirate Bay. Seriously, what did they expect? If the pirates are providing a superior product (generally better encoding) and more convenience, then the pirates will win. Fox at least had something to offer when they let you stream the shows the day after. That at least improved the convenience part, because you don't have to wait for the download. But an 8-day wait is just throwing money away.

And really, with the advent of programs that automatically search for and download .torrent files, you can actually end up with basically your own auto-updating home theater system.

I configure something like TED (Television Episode Downloader) or similar to watch for shows that I like, have my torrent client download them, and have them copied to the fileserver all automagically and for less money, higher quality, and less bullshit (adverts) than cable, satellite, or hulu.