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Millennials Unearth an Amazing Hack to Get Free TV: the Antenna (wsj.com)
From a report on WSJ: Dan Sisco has discovered a technology that allows him to access half a dozen major TV channels, completely free. "I was just kind of surprised that this is technology that exists (alternative source)," says Mr. Sisco, 28 years old. "It's been awesome. It doesn't log out and it doesn't skip." Let's hear a round of applause for TV antennas, often called "rabbit ears," a technology invented roughly seven decades ago, long before there was even a cord to be cut, which had been consigned to the technology trash can along with cassette tapes and VCRs. The antenna is mounting a quiet comeback, propelled by a generation that never knew life before cable television, and who primarily watch Netflix , Hulu and HBO via the internet. Antenna sales in the U.S. are projected to rise 7 percent in 2017 to nearly 8 million units, according to the Consumer Technology Association, a trade group. Mr. Sisco, an M.B.A. student in Provo, Utah, made his discovery after inviting friends over to watch the Super Bowl in 2014. The online stream he found to watch the game didn't have regular commercials -- disappointing half of his guests who were only interested in the ads. "An antenna was not even on my radar," he says. He went online and discovered he could buy one for $20 and watch major networks like ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS free.
For real.
"We interviewed some dumbshit kid and he said some dumbshit things! Millenails are turning society on it's head!"
Or are people really stupid enough to not know about broadcast [expletive] TV?
It's quite easy to not know about a technology from before your time. It's not like kids are born knowing how to wash clothes on a washboard either. Some of them don't even know how to wash clothes with modern technology by the time they go to college. I've known brilliant people who didn't know how to use a mop because nobody had ever taught them.
Real lawyers write in C++
they will discover "radio" and forsake the AUX in jack they all live by...
There's nothing wrong with streaming per se. I love Netflix, big Stranger Things fan, but the argument that I'm "saving" something by skipping ads I feel is quite silly to me. It was time that I originally planned to be non-productive. I planned on that time to yield nothing. So getting back the 18 minutes that I would have spent in ads still yields me $0 since that's the value I placed on that time originally. I just don't get this notion that every second of someone's life has some dollar and cents attached to it. We're not 100% productive beings, in fact that's very much the core reason we've invented things to increase our productivity.
If putting a price on every second someone is alive is your kind of thing, then more power to you. I'm not calling you wrong in any sense of the word because I just feel that this isn't one of those things that has a "correct" answer. It's just a matter of how one values their time. I'm sure there's pros and cons to either perspective, but I vote with my dollars based on how much I enjoy the content, not the lack or presence of ads.
Reads like an Onion article
This isn't "before" anybody's time. Broadcast TV has been available continuously for the guy's entire life.
I'd say that's more an example of how effective the MPAA/RIAA have been at brainwashing people into thinking that they should have to pay for every movie/TV show they watch and every song they hear. Because if you don't, it's piracy!