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Columnist Mocks The Case Against Cord-Cutting As 'Too Many Choices' (techhive.com)
An anonymous reader quote TechHive:
The cord-cutting naysayers are trotting out a new argument in favor of cable, and it's even more absurd than the old ones: Having too many high-quality, standalone streaming services, they say, is actually bad for consumers, who are apparently helpless at using technology or making sound purchase decisions... The New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski concluded that all those sneering hipsters who've had the nerve to ditch cable are about to get their comeuppance -- in the form of additional services to choose from... By now, anyone who's actually cut the cable cord should be screaming out in unison: No one's making you subscribe to all these services! You can pick the ones you care about most, rotate between services, or occupy your screen time with a growing number of other digital distractions...
I will concede that if you want to use multiple streaming services, trying to sift through them all can be confusing. But even this concern is blown entirely out of proportion by naysaying pundits, who seem to ignore solutions that already exist. Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV all offer universal search across services like Netflix and Hulu, while features like Roku Feed and the Apple TV TV app demonstrate how system-wide browsing is getting easier. Besides, using a handful of apps to get what you want isn't that burdensome -- especially for the growing audience of people who've been raised on smartphones... consumers are smarter than they're getting credit for. That's why cable subscriptions continue to plunge, even as these bogus stories keep popping up like clockwork.
I will concede that if you want to use multiple streaming services, trying to sift through them all can be confusing. But even this concern is blown entirely out of proportion by naysaying pundits, who seem to ignore solutions that already exist. Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV all offer universal search across services like Netflix and Hulu, while features like Roku Feed and the Apple TV TV app demonstrate how system-wide browsing is getting easier. Besides, using a handful of apps to get what you want isn't that burdensome -- especially for the growing audience of people who've been raised on smartphones... consumers are smarter than they're getting credit for. That's why cable subscriptions continue to plunge, even as these bogus stories keep popping up like clockwork.
Streaming used to be seen as an alternative to cable, but let's face it: It's turning out to be the same. Yes, yes, you can now choose when to watch your show instead of having to wait for it to appear on X-day Y-time, but face it, the difference is nonexistent. Now, instead of watching it when it's aired you watch it when it is available for streaming, and if you want to watch it later, you basically save yourself the VCR programming, because that's basically what watching it later than release essentially is.
Well, maybe (soon) without the ability to skip ads.
No ads you say? There were no ads in cable either in the beginning. Give it time.
The rest is already the same as cable was. Again you get different streaming providers that offer different content, which isn't so different from the different cable packages. Again you get to pay for provider (package) A, even though you are only interested in 10% of its programming. You'd want to watch show B, but show B is only available from provider (package) C, so you either have to shell out another X bucks to get that provider (package) even though all you really want from it is that one show and you couldn't care less for the rest of what comes bundled with it.
Face it: Streaming is the new cable. You just let someone else rip you off.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.