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245 Comments
- inactive, on 05/05/2009, -2/+338Comcast should be worrying because they suck.
- danielrh9, on 05/05/2009, -2/+176Leo Laporte has been making an excellent point on this topic on his TWIT podcasts the past few weeks. He says that telecomm companies who have both internet and cable TV services are simply scared that what's available on the net is going to drive away cable customers. People will eventually wise up and realize that they don't need a cable / satellite subscription to watch their shows. So companies like Comcast and AT&T are trying to redefine internet access, moving it away from a utility that simply provides bits, into a service that can be sectioned off into tiers.
Scary stuff. The net neutrality drums aren't being beaten loud enough if you ask me. - cjennings, on 05/05/2009, -2/+150Give me Discovery Channel on Hulu and i'm out bitches.
- sodade, on 05/05/2009, -2/+117...because they are buggy whip makers.
Hey Comcast - ***** your making people pay for a bunch of crap channels. - tj111, on 05/05/2009, -1/+50And the Science and History channels.
- billraydrums, on 05/05/2009, -0/+43I'm canceling my Cox TV service in lieu of Hulu, YouTube, etc. Saving about $90/month!
- MrAwesomeMan, on 05/05/2009, -0/+41A message to TV providers:
I have cancelled my TV service without regret. Want me back? Here's what you need to do:
1. Give me a choice. The channels I subscribe to should be a la carte, not a giant bundle. I want to choose which channels I subscribe to, and only pay for those.
2. Let me watch internet video through the set-top box.
3. If I want to ever cancel my service, don't treat me like a giant turd. I know you think that making it difficult to cancel will make people not want to cancel. I know you think that you can treat me like crap because I'm no longer your customer. You think that because you're stupid. If it's hard for me to cancel, there is zero chance I'm ever coming back. Take a page out of Netflix's book. They make it easy to cancel, and then kindly ask you to fill out a survey of why you're cancelling. It's painless and doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth should I ever want Netflix again. It's for this very reason that I will NEVER use Dish Network again. One of the most painful cancellation experiences I've ever had.
So, TV providers, think you can do all that? If so, I'm coming back (though not with Dish Network). - tonmil, on 05/05/2009, -0/+32Comcast should just be in the dumb pipe business. Let's others distribute content
- abyss478, on 05/05/2009, -1/+32It seems Comcast is aware that people don't want to wait around and schedule their lives around a TV schedule. They tried to offer an on-demand service when they rolled out their oh-so-cleverly named "on-demand." But all of their on-demand shows suck. And the movies are from years ago. And let's face it, paying $50-$100 for 1000000 million channels when really all you want is a good 10 or 20 just leaves the consumer bitter.
Comcast is the "Blockbuster" of TV. Netflix is kicking Blockbuster in the balls, and Hulu will do the same to Comcast if they don't offer quality on-demand shows at a lower cost. - cweber40, on 05/04/2009, -1/+28I'd be worried if I were them
- op12, on 05/05/2009, -1/+22Yep, bandwidth caps and higher charges for internet without cable are all their attempts to prevent the shift from cable to just internet.
The other thing preventing a lot of people from making the full switch are live sports. How is there no decent online alternative yet? Certain events like March Madness have alternatives, but not pro sports in general. - inactive, on 05/05/2009, -0/+20Ssshhhh. Don't tell them, they'll start throttling Hulu.
- dagamer34, on 05/05/2009, -0/+19Have you been living under a rock these past few weeks? Time Warner tried to pull that ***** and the outrage got them shut down, especially when it's been proven that their costs have been DECREASING over time, and yet they want to charge more.
- ryan69969, on 05/05/2009, -0/+19PS3 + PlayOn + Broadband. Local channels come in HD for free over the air now. Pay TV service no longer needed.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -0/+18Give me an a la carte cable option and I may decide to keep the service (as it is, I'm ditching it a soon as the contract runs out). I don't need 500 channels of fluff, I swear. I'd rather be able to pay a couple of bucks a month for each of the (very few) channels I want. I'd also love to be able to subscribe to sports channels seasonally, but - oh well.
.....Come to think of it, that's precisely the same reason I won't buy full CDs but *will* occasionally spring $.99 for a song I actually enjoy. Huh. Fancy that. - daimposter, on 05/05/2009, -1/+17i despise comcast. they rip me off. My internet/cable packages is about $103 here in chicago. The cable i have is the first digital tier and it's $58/month!!! The only thing they offer for less is the basic cable and that's $27/month. But I need my ESPN and comcast sports (White Sox and Bulls game). I've decided that $31/month is too much to pay just for the luxury of those 2 channels. ESPN.com now has alot of video highlights and the White Sox play about 1/3 of their games on other stations found on the basic cable plan.
Also, I cannot get RCN yet in my neighborhood but a similar internet and cable package is only about $85. A similar plan from some other provider in the suburbs is about $100 but it includes an HD DVR!!
comcast can suck my dick. - dle5, on 05/05/2009, -0/+15"So what can the Comcasts of the world do?"
Work on eliminating or dramatically reducing commercials. I won't even begin to accept any cable solution that still includes 15 minutes of commercials each hour. And no, having to FF through them on a DVR doesn't count. - Wesside, on 05/05/2009, -2/+16They should be more worried because they have a 250gb cap / month and those shows and movies people are watching are going to be blowing over that cap really quickly, especially people doing HD movies.
Did the math at work, yes i work for a call center that takes comcasts internet tech support and with the new 50mbs service being offered in some places, we calculated that a customer could eat their 250gb cap (still in place with the 50 mbs service, at $149 a month), in 40 minutes.
Once this starts happening, I have a feeling that 250gb cap is going to be either set to well over 1tb or removed all together (we hope anyway) - WiretapStudios, on 05/05/2009, -3/+16I watch a lot of things on Hulu that I formerly downloaded. Since I pay the cable company for internet...at the moment they are still getting their money. I pay more for internet than I would for cable. Cable for a single guy with a g/f just isn't for me, our schedules demand when the content is viewed, not the other way around. However, to do that with cable I would have to have cable, box, DVR, etc. Which is plenty expensive for my parents, but not feasible for my budget or logic.
- brb1031, on 05/05/2009, -0/+13Dugg for Buggy whip makers.
Spot on. If they stuck to cheaply providing access, they'd have been heroes of the industry. What do they really provide? - philipbarrett, on 05/05/2009, -1/+14Under 35 pah! Netflix On Demand & Hulu is a great thing for us oldies too. Canceled cable & satellite years ago because I couldn't stand the commercials/outages/kids watching Nick endlessly. An HD Tivo & a WiFi connection is all y'need. Seriously, the older market is also less likely to want to watch the current Primetime s**t which should be worrying for both the Cable & network industries since last time I checked we had more money than you 20 somethings.
- jonnymj, on 05/05/2009, -1/+12Comcast would be more worried if Hulu didnt try and block every attempt to watch their content that was not inside a browser window. (i.e. xbmc)
- PlusTheBear, on 05/05/2009, -0/+11A monopoly is when you have one choice and no competition. Monopoly.
- Jektal, on 05/05/2009, -0/+11What do you think the bandwidth caps are for?
- RudeTurnip, on 05/05/2009, -0/+11A PS3 is a one-time cost and offers much more utility than streaming video programs. PlayOn is a one-time cost and also lets PS3 owners stream their Netflix queues. A computer being turned on is not a big deal...you simply don't press the "off" button.
Cable television is almost $1,000 PER YEAR and you're paying for a lot of programming you'll never use. *FAIL* - WiseGuy1020, on 05/05/2009, -0/+11Ask your parents but originally the whole idea of "paying for cable" was to avoid the commercials in the over-the-air broadcasts. Enough people did it and after awhile the cable companies said ***** it there is nothing the consumer can do and started selling ads as well.
Most people in my generation have no idea that is how cable TV started. - Jektal, on 05/05/2009, -0/+10If they're anything like Comcast expect to save less.
I was paying like $80 for Comcast basic cable and internet, with the bill split evenly at $40 for each service (that's what it said in all of the paperwork; advertisements, contract, bill statements, etc.) Dropped the cable TV and they started charging me $60 for cable internet.
Still cheaper. Still *****. - AngelBunny, on 05/05/2009, -2/+11*****?
- Stingwolf, on 05/05/2009, -0/+9I'm not a sports fan, myself, but that argument is a little extreme, don't you think? After all, they're only millionaires -because- so many people watch them play sports.
- sebey, on 05/05/2009, -13/+2240%? seems a bit high where did they take the survey silicon valley?
- inigomntoya, on 05/05/2009, -0/+9FTA - More than 40% of U.S. households under age 35 watch Internet video on their TVs at least once a month.
This just confuses me more. This means people aren't just turning on hulu every once in a while on their laptops. They are watching it on their TV's.
I guess it includes adults with an XBox who watch an occasional video here an there. So, maybe this number is right. - mogwaiinjustice, on 05/05/2009, -0/+9I once called comcast and asked if i could just get Showtime and HBO and not have to pay for (or receive) anything else. I'm pretty sure he was holding back laughter on the other end of the phone.
- MrPatriotMan, on 05/05/2009, -2/+10F00k Comcast Customer Service and their traffic shaping policies.
- garrettg84, on 05/05/2009, -0/+8Why yes, actually as a customer and a self driven human being, I WOULD LIKE EVERYTHING CATERED JUST FOR ME. Thats part of the whole customer thing, I look for what I want and I buy it if it is at a price that I feel is worth it.
Should I pay for crap and get crap times two just because some corporation thinks I should?
You sir, are an idiot. - slainbyte, on 05/05/2009, -1/+9ummm... Comcast owns thePlatform, which provides media access for Hulu... They also run http://www.fancast.com/ which is like a TiVo for hulu. Sooo.... You would think it they were worried they wouldn't be providing Hulu media access technology or running a site that improves on the Hulu experiance.
- bigbadgoat, on 05/05/2009, -0/+8250 gB cap?
Rogers Canada? 60 gB.
Consider yourself lucky. - RudeTurnip, on 05/05/2009, -8/+16The alternative is getting off one's fat ass and actually playing a sport. I've always thought it was a dirty, voyeuristic fetish to watch millionaires play sports on television.
- Peleus, on 05/05/2009, -1/+9Long live Boxee.
- madeingermany, on 05/06/2009, -0/+7We just removed anything but limited cable. First 30 channels = $12.55 a month.
I would add the food channel for $5, but I surely will not pay $45 extra for the next bigger package! - UselessTrivia, on 05/05/2009, -1/+8Streaming hulu to an xbox is no simple matter though. It takes some tech savvy to make that happen, as well as additional software running on a PC.
I do it on occassion, but I generally prefer to just hook my laptop up to the VGA input on my TV. Not every TV has one of these, though. - MxM111, on 05/05/2009, -2/+9They DO worry!
As if nobody noticed 250Gb monthly limit in there internet service.
The problem is that being ISP and cable company at the same time is
CONFLICT OF INTERESTS! - josephbloseph, on 05/05/2009, -0/+740% of internet survey respondents, maybe. I could see that demographic skewed a little towards these results
- cyoder, on 05/05/2009, -0/+7Not only does On Demand selection suck, but the service is mediocre. You can only rewind/fast forward in one speed, but more importantly, the feed is bad. If my picture isn't being distorted by artifacts or other junk, the connection is dropping entirely and I have to slug through the clunky interface all over again to get back to where I was. As such, I hardly ever use it anymore.
- earthceltic, on 05/05/2009, -0/+6whatever competition goes against those bastards is good competition.
- TheNyquilKid, on 05/05/2009, -0/+6If it weren't for sports I would have canceled the cable already. It's a giant waste of money.
- rlvis, on 05/05/2009, -0/+6Same goes for a married guy with two kids. I want to watch what I want, when I want. As more and more content is available through services like Hulu, the smaller my satellite subscription gets.
- Moralogic, on 05/05/2009, -1/+7That wont work... I will start my own fiber optic company before dealing with that crap. Running fiber to people's houses it a lot cheaper in the long run than dealing with Comcast today anyways... maybe I should just do it now..
- wolfing, on 05/05/2009, -0/+6Can't you just use the console Internet browser? I do it with my PS3, no need for a PC
- wolfing, on 05/05/2009, -0/+6hmm... wrong math?
250GB (not Gb) so 250,000 MB
50Mb/s so 6.25MB/s
250,000 / 6.25 = 40000 seconds = 666.66 minutes = 11 hours or so (which implies you're dowloading at 50Mb/s which not Hulu or Youtube or pretty much any content provider will give you. More like 1/10th of that, so 110 hours) - FrozenBladeGX, on 05/05/2009, -3/+9This business is going to change dramatically in the course of the lifetime of anyone below 30 IMO.
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