Slashdot Mirror
Unbundling Cable TV: Be Careful What You Wish For
schnell writes Consumers have long complained about the practice of "bundling" cable services and forcing customers to pay for channels they don't want — and an increasing number of "cord cutters" are voting with their wallets. But an article in the New York Times suggests that if cable companies are finally forced to unbundle their services it may actually result in higher prices and worse service. From the article: "there's another, more subjective dimension in which the rise of unbundled cable service may make us worse off. It's possible for a market to become more economically efficient while becoming less pleasant for consumers. For a prime example, head to your nearest airport."
Nearly everyone I know has dumped cable and in most cases it wasn't to make their budget better but that once they got Netflix that commercials became insufferable and the cost per cable hour watched then skyrocketed. In my area to have a half decent set of packages you will end up paying around $100 per month. So for people who were just watching the occasional news show and not much else they realized that they were paying pretty much the same per show as the entirety of their monthly Netflix cost.
But then I hear other complaints which is that the news is becoming wildly biased while the quality of most programming is in freefall. I hear that it is becoming clear that many of the new programs are being made on silly low budgets. For instance I was over at a cable using friend's house and the weather reporter was talking to a camera on a tripod. They had eliminated the cameraman. Plus some of the travel shows are basically all selfie shots with a selfie stick or a tripod.
And CNN really took the cake when they had 1000's of hours of reporting on the missing airliner when their only two real facts were that it was missing and that it turned left.
So while in 1994 I would have killed to get my channels a-la-carte at this point it is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Dish just introduced a $20/mo. streaming service that includes ESPN. Seems like the cord cutters have the final piece of the puzzle now.