YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#331

Post by mysterydip » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

ozbonus wrote: post #185

keithwinstein wrote: post #12

ObShameless reminder that https://puffer.stanford.edu remains free of charge. The site streams San Francisco affiliates and local stations of NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/FOX/CW as part of a university study on video streaming algorithms -- it's essentially a big A/B test to try to reproduce or clarify some of the findings in the research literature. We're now posting all our data and analysis each day. Research talk here: https:…

This was the first time I've watched live broadcast US TV since leaving the country ten years ago. Are there any shows on, or is every channel besides PBS just advertisements all day?

Even PBS has ads nowadays. At the beginning of a show, "sesame street was brought to you today by support from viewers like you, and..." (ad for abcmouse, some minivan, etc plays)

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#332

Post by cowsandmilk » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

Gaelan wrote: post #314

Ed314159 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-commercial band in the United States is 88-92FM. All the best (many college) stations will be in this band: KFJC, WFMU, KEXP... Radio is alive and well in the U.S., its just not commercial radio.

Huh. KUOW, (one of) Seattle’s NPR stations, is on 94.9. Wonder what the story there is

The band was donated to them by KING

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#333

Post by voodootrucker » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #175

caymanjim wrote: post #119

I love YoutubeTV, and I've been using it for years. This is probably enough to get me to cancel, though. It started at $40 when I signed up a couple years ago, they raised it to $50 last year, and now $65 for just a few more channels (and among them, only one I even want). I wish they'd offer a more a la carte option. I'd be willing to pay $10-15 per major broadcaster's channel collection, or $2-7 for individual chan…

The conventional TV channels don't allow their networks to be sold a-la-carte because they all make more money via the bundle than anyone would be willing to pay for their channels individually. Remember that most of these channels are related - for example, NBC owns Telemundo, SyFy, USA, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, etc. They sell all of those through bundles and keep $20/mo or so, but how many people would pay that much for…

America has a lot of problems, but they all look strangely like anti-trust: https://mattstoller.substack.com/

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#334

Post by relyks » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #235

CamperBob2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even on SiriusXM, the DJs never seem to shut up. One of my fondest "one of these days" project ideas: duct-tape a correlator to an RF front end, along with enough storage to "Tivoize" the local FM band. Record everything, recognize and redact any content that reoccurs within 30-second windows, and rebroadcast it for household/car consumption.

They went about it differently but already made it, it's called Spotify.

An even better idea, if you're preferential to radio DJs: have a recording setup and Shazam-like recognition system where a Spotify playlist or queue is made from what's being played. I was considering doing that as a project. The song choice by the radio DJs is the real value, and I sometimes prefer their playlists over my recommended daily mix playlists or whatever Spotify selects on the generated radio stations. The highest streaming quality option on Spotify is superior in audio quality to regular radio and the digital streaming options from radio websites. StationHead has been trying to do something similar, but they still include the social live host aspect.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#335

Post by josefresco » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

When I ditched cable TV my bandwidth usage skyrocketed. Now that the prices are closer, there seems to be almost no benefit to streaming TV. My Internet will be faster and Xfinity's apps are as good if not better than YT.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#336

Post by josefresco » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #81

eslaught wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: why do big organizations do this? I mean, I get it: you're making people pay for stuff they don't need. You can charge a higher price despite users not actually watching everything they buy. Clearly, this tactic must work at some level, or else they wouldn't do it. On the other hand, there are users like me who take one look at that and say, "ew", and walk away from TV completely. And it's not like I…

Subsidizing new content and making it easily discoverable are the primary reasons for bundling. When new content comes to you for free with your existing purchase, the only thing stopping you from trying it out and potentially getting hooked is your willingness to commit time to it. If every piece of content had a price associate with it, people would be much less willing to try new things. This same principle applie…

Bundling needs to die. Let the channels sink or swim like every other consumer product. This "logic" is just industry PR that's been accepted and normalized.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#337

Post by astura » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:39 AM UTC

zelly wrote: post #213

keithwinstein wrote: post #12

ObShameless reminder that https://puffer.stanford.edu remains free of charge. The site streams San Francisco affiliates and local stations of NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS/FOX/CW as part of a university study on video streaming algorithms -- it's essentially a big A/B test to try to reproduce or clarify some of the findings in the research literature. We're now posting all our data and analysis each day. Research talk here: https:…

FYI these are the same channels you can get with rabbit ears

Only if you 1) live in the US 2) own a TV and 3) live close enough to the broadcasting stations to pick up their signals.

I live in the US and own a TV but I don't live within 50 miles of any station broadcasting TV signals, so I can't pick up any signals with a TV top antenna.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#338

Post by nohant » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:40 AM UTC

chrsstrm wrote: post #83

mnm1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just cancel now. You still get the rest of the current month you paid for and there's no need to worry about forgetting. I just cancelled mine. "Rough around the edges" is a nice way of describing an app that doesn't play what I click on but random shit it feels like.

You don't think announcing this rate hike on the morning of the last day of the Q2 is coincidence? Sounds like most people's accounts are scheduled to renew in August, which would be much more impactful if we all waited until then to cancel. The knee-jerk cancelations today are fully expected and accounted for.

"I will time my cancellation to hopefully better mess with your key business indicators"

petty but quite brilliant!

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#339

Post by serg_chernata » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

couchdb_ouchdb wrote: post #10

Cancelling. Really really terrible to do this in the middle of a pandemic. Who cares about these extra channels?

Same here, I cancelled immediately. I swallowed the previous price increases but this is getting close to regular cable TV. I switched to YTV to avoid cable to begin with.

Re: YouTube TV sharply increases monthly subscription to $64.99

#340

Post by aswanson » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

listenallyall wrote: post #284

sutterbomb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone thinks they want a la carte, but (most) everyone is wrong. Bundling is generally better for consumers and producers. https://cdixon.org/2012/07/08/how-bundling-benefits-sellers-... Stratechery also has written about this

Anti-bundling rants based on subsidizing unwanted channels are illogical. You're annoyed at paying for cable channels you don't watch but OK paying full freight for Netflix where you'll watch less than 5% of the available content? You're subsidizing the other 95%! Or that a-la-carte channel you want, you won't be watching it 24 hours per day so why subsidize programming that's on when you're sleeping or at work? Do y…

There are certain channels whose content I feel causes societal damage. Namely, Fox news. Id happily pay a buck or two more to ensure not a dime of my bill subsidizes that channel.