#streaming is not like cable

[princess-viola]

i genuinely think people who say shit like 'streaming is basically cable now' NEVER actually paid for cable in their life

cable was and is absolutely bullshit and streaming is nothing like cable.

does it suck ass that there's like a million different subscription services now?

yes, it does - but that whole fantasy of there only ever being one single streaming service with everything on it was never going to last forever and even now it's still absolutely nothing like cable

i did some math recently and you could subscribe to the following streaming services:

netflix

disney+

hulu

apple tv+

max

paramount+

peacock

for less than $100/mo total. and i ain't talking like 'oh if you sub to the cheapest options with ads, it comes out to sub $100/mo', no that is the total price if you sub to Netflix Premium, the Disney Bundle Duo Premium, (Disney+ and Hulu), Apple TV+, Max Ultimate Ad-Free, Paramount+ with Showtime, and Peacock Premium Plus. The most expensive options for all of them (sans Disney+ since they also have a Disney Bundle Trio Premium that also has ESPN+ w/o ads)

now let's compare that with cable. obviously cable prices can vary depending on where you are and what providers are in your area, so i'm just going by what's available where i live right now. i have xfinity and here are the current channel packages available at my address:

choice TV - $20/mo

popular tv - $60/mo

ultimate TV - $80/mo

that sounds great, don't it? I mean even the most expensive channel package is ~$20 cheaper per month than being subbed to all the major streaming services. that clearly must mean that the complainers are right and streaming has just become the new cable and cable is even cheaper than streaming now

well, no. it's not. because here's the shit they ain't telling you: - the cheapest package? choice TV? that's literally just your local channels (which you can pick up for free with an antenna because they're broadcast OTA), C-SPAN, some shopping channels, and the music choice channels. that's literally it, that's all you get if you for the cheapest option.

also in addition to the advertised monthly price, there's tons of additional fees and shit you gotta pay that aren't included in the advertised price.

that $20/mo choice TV option? you also gotta pay a $24.40/mo broadcast TV fee. the $60/mo and $80/mo popular and ultimate TV options? you gotta pay the broadcast TV fee and a $16.50/mo regional sports fee

so at the very least the prices of $20, $60, and $80/mo are bullshit and the actual prices are $44.40, $100.90, $120.90 for each plan per month

WELL NO THOSE STILL AIN'T THE ACTUAL PRICES YOU'D BE PAYING EITHER BECAUSE SALES TAX, EQUIPMENT FEES, AND OTHER ADD-ONS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRICES

let's say i decide that i want the biggest channel package available from xfinity, so i go for the $80/mo ultimate TV option. $80/mo for all these channels, seems pretty great!

well, you can also customize and add additional packages to your plan, so i decide 'well i do also like to stream, so i'll go for the xfinity streamsaver bundle (which gives me netflix standard w/ ads, apple tv+, and peacock premium) for an additional $15/mo and maybe i'm into sports so i also get the more sports & entertainment package so i get more sports channels for an additional $9.95/mo

then comes the equipment, you get one TV box by default but most people have more than one TV. so let's say there are three TVs in my house: one in the living room and one in each bedroom, so i'll need three TV boxes total. those are $10/mo each, so that's $30/mo more for the TV boxes.

you got DVR as well, you get 20 hours included for free, but i figure 'well the option to get 150 hours of DVR recordings is only $10/mo, so i'll go for that'

so what would be the total estimated cost per month for all of this?

per xfinity's own website, all of this would cost me an estimated $203.88/mo

that's right, over $200 a month for a plan that they advertise as being $80/mo

being subbed to all of the major streaming services: sub-$100 and the price that the streaming service advertises is the price you are going to pay per month (maybe slightly more due to taxes depending on where you live). there's no hidden extra fees you pay that they don't advertise, you don't have to rent equipment from them to use their services, and the big one YOU ARE NOT LOCKED INTO A CONTRACT WITH THEM

thankfully lots of cable companies nowadays offer no-contract options (the example xfinity plan i was using was no-contract) but back in the day, you'd literally be locked into a 12 or 24 month contract with your cable company with no way out unless you wanted to pay an early termination fee

streaming? not a thing. you can cancel and resub whenever you want. you're only subbed to a service to watch one series and now the season is over and there really ain't anything else you wanna watch? you can cancel your subscription, you ain't locked into having, for example, a netflix sub for 12 months that you don't use

(also for fucks sake i pay for cable still and my combined cable and internet bill is $300/mo like deadass if you seriously think streaming is at all comparable to cable you can eat my ass)

[nekobami]

PLEASE DO RUBBERRICKY

THE CARTOONY BOY??? OF COURSE HE - Got you my dear lad!!

[no sound]DAY 12 - RUBBER RICK! THE FLOOR IS YOURS!!! [This OC belongs to: @rubberricky of course!]

[loveandthings11]

Release the deleted scenes 👀💓

[vamprisms]

it is possible to have longer & well written/produced seasons of tv shows that are made under good union conditions. you know this in your heart

[clumsypuppy]

the shyest creature on earth dreams of art streaming

[fluffytheocelot]

honestly homophobic of netflix to remove the interactive with the julethief canon events in it

AND ON THE DAY CARMEN ESCAPES VILE NO LESS 😒

rip To Steal or Not To Steal. you had the entire fandom in a chokehold over that ending <3

[saltpepperbeard]

so this video is currently sitting on my YouTube homepage, and i cannot help but be like

[moonlight-at-dawn]

People gotta stop using "and also it sucks" as an argument for not supporting something. Like. I never liked HP. I borrowed the 1st book from a friend in 8th? grade and read it and was like "Wow, this sucks, I'm not sure why it's popular" to myself, then just told my friend I didn't enjoy it like she does and thanked her for letting me borrow it but I wouldn't need any others.

And just. Even though I agree that HP is poorly written, saying that it sucks isn't a good argument for why not support it. There's lots of people who grew up with it, they didn't catch the racist undertones, they just enjoyed a simple story that they found captivating. I've enjoyed lots of things that are objectively poor representations of artistic technique because it spoke to me in one way or another. Chances are everyone has at least one thing that they love that others would say is poor quality, even if they've tucked it away as a guilty pleasure.

And just. Shame is a terrible weapon. "It sucks anyways" "If you like it you have no taste" even "You should've known." ('Should' is a most vile expletive) What're you trying to accomplish with these phrases? Because "reach an understanding" and "change people's hearts and minds" aren't accomplished this way.

Stick to purely objective facts. Objective facts DOES include her negative influence on the quality of peoples' lives, the damage she had wrought with her hate campaigns and lobbying, etc. But quality of the story/writing is subjective. Even where it's a poor example of writing as an art, the effect on a person reading it is subjective, so it's still not a good argument.

And like. I mentioned 8th grade above. That was 2001 for me. We were barely entering web 2.0, okay? Information you take for granted was found almost exclusively in books, but the problem we'd yet to acknowledge at the time was that any asshole can publish a book, it doesn't make the information inside CORRECT.

And you'll still see many people my age and most above it will still swear by information they read in a book. "Did you know that if a hummingbird stops flapping its wings, its heart will stop?" So many books claimed this. It's false. Try telling anyone over 35 this, especially if they're not chronically online. See what they say if you ask them "What happens if a hummingbird stops flying?" Like they're sky sharks or something.

Anyways, point is, when you have a good point to make, why are you using subjective attacks? It makes you feel good and superior but it undercuts your good points. You discredit yourself when you use subjectivity in your "proof."

[princehendir]

Every time I watch a show with ads o feel like I'm about to become the unabomber

[bibleofficial]

god bless sleeping 12hrs nightly

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Not Disney Plus literally just straight up reinventing cable but more expensive and calling it 'live channels' lmao.

[whyeverr]

"So I know we said we'd work on stranger danger stuff, buuuuut I found a copy of Sims of the Dead... Wouldn't watching a zombie movie be considered research?"

[https-hunter]

Officially moved in because I got bob’s burgers set up in my new apartment <3

[moths-in-a-coat]

one of my biggest gripes with netflix tbh is the inconsistency of what shows are available and that what is available is based on geolocation. the fact you have to use a vpn to get access to part of a service you’re paying for is fucking ridiculous. and the fact netflix tries its hardest to prevent the use of a vpn on top of it is fucking stupid

[malcolm-reeds-pineapple]

One time I bitched to my dad about how my pizza got cold while I was looking for something good to watch on YouTube. He just stared blankly at me and said that in 1987 he would get home from his evening shift towing helicopters at work with a pizza, flick through his like 6 channels and hope there was something good on TV. On a good day it was a M*A*S*H rerun or Letterman. On a bad day, he was watching coronation street or “something equally shit”. Now every time I go to get a slice and can’t find something on YouTube, I just pull up an old Kurtis Connor video and pretend I’m sitting in a dark bachelor apartment in 1987 and I found a channel playing a M*A*S*H rerun. Occasionally I put on Coronation Street highlights so I can understand the suffering my ancestors went through when they got a piping hot pizza pie and had to watch shitty TV. It’s like LARPing.

[liebgirl]

ok. this spring. we are getting back into movies. movies are going to be so back this spring. real. going to watch a movie right now even. and i might even finish it