201–210 of 462 posts
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There have been some astonishingly good television programs to come out of broadcast television. West Wing, MASH... Wait, I'm sure there have been more. Right? Yeah, never mind.
Star Trek . I mean, for certain values of "astonishingly".
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I'm not sure if it's significant to the statistics, but Comcast has always given me an internet+cable package for cheaper than the internet by itself. So for my household, the cable box is just a big electronic coupon.
That smells fishy to me. I'd look for hidden fees and watch for price increases.
I accidentally watched some TV the other day. Having not seen any regular programming for at least a year, I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become. Also, why did we sit through so many commercials for so long? It feel a little like a twilight zone episode, where we sit there watching a box telling us what to buy.
There's a shitload of product placement in Netflix and (particularly) Amazon original content. They're still telling you what to buy, you just don't notice it as much.
I accidentally watched some TV the other day. Having not seen any regular programming for at least a year, I was amazed at how much ... dumber it has become. Also, why did we sit through so many commercials for so long? It feel a little like a twilight zone episode, where we sit there watching a box telling us what to buy.
There's a feedback loop in play: Smarter people stop watching TV > TV adapts to the new demographics to fight over dwindling ratings > TV becomes dumber > Even more smarter people stop watching TV
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To be fair, the commercials are the best part of watching The Big Bang Theory . Much better to spend a few minutes imagining how cool I would be if I just owned Product X rather than see a nerd minstrel show with an annoying laugh track.
…really? "Nerd minstrel show?" Ah yes, we poor nerds, overcoming centuries of repressive awkwardness and desk jobs.
Try searching for versions with laugh track removed to get a better sense of the writing per se without the extra emotional manipulation.
Compare with Silicon Valley, a comedy show which also mercilessly skewers nerds, but more for the sake of social commentary than just piling on insults, and which treats even the most caricatured characters with some dignity and humanity.
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I think TV remains popular with certain people largely out of ease of use. You can just turn it on and you don't have to make a decision about what to watch. It's always there. Also, changing would require learning something new. People genuinely find learning to have a level of discomfort so they avoid it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/learning-hurts-your-...
I wonder why Netflix doesn't add a "random content" button. That's one of the appeals of TV versus Netflix that could be replicated very easily. Something more akin to changing channels like "random cartoon" or "random comedy" would remove one last obstacle in the way of converting cable subscribers.
There'd be a "cable-style-menu" option to mimic the way cable / satellite menus have looked since the late 90's. Maybe 50 or so channels of similar programming running on a time schedule, where you have the option of catching the last 30 minutes of "Terminator 2 - Judgement Day" or watching from the beginning.
Its mindless, but I think that style of consumption is what a lot of people want. It to do the hard work for them.
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So instead of watching content provided by the major networks over Coax delivered to you by one of the major ISPs, you watch content over TCP/IP brought to you by one of the major ISPs owned by the same content providers. Hulu is 30% own by Fox, Disney, and Comcast and the other 10% is owned by Time Warner. You're still watching content on your television, over a wire, brought to you by the major content providers. W…
You really don't see a difference between linear tv programming with 25% ads and on-demand ad-free streaming?
I'm in no way saying cable is better, the only reason I had was because we were forced to pay $99 a month for Comcast cable + tv when I was renting.
I would never do cable now. The 6 TVs I have around the house would cost $50 a month just in box rental fees and that doesn't include the HD technology, cost recovery, network access, and sports access fees.
I was thinking about this the other day, and I was wondering whether the fact that my kids are not exposed at all to commercials might make them more susceptible to advertising when they grow up.
Every minute a kid watches a stupid Netflix kids show is a wasted minute they can be stimulating their brain positively instead of numbing it with manufactured industrialized content. Having said that my kids do get a couple hours on the weekend and it's actually fascinating to see what happens when they put the iPad away. It's almost like they need a half hour or so to re-adjust to real life after all the stupid con…
No offense but you sound like my aunt who would tell me all the time that video games would make me stupid. But I wouldn't be working in tech today if it wasn't for my passion for video games. (note: I also limit screen time for my kids)