40 Percent of America Will Cut the Cord By 2030, New Report Predicts (vice.com)

bumblebaetuna shares a report from Motherboard: By 2030, as many as 40 percent of Americans will have cut the cord, according to predictions in a new report by market analyst TDG Research. The percent of U.S. households still shelling out for cable has dropped every year since 2012. If the trend continues on the current path, TDG predicts the percent of U.S. households subscribing to pay TV will drop to 60 percent in the next 13 years. Cost is a major driver of this shift: the cost of bundling a few favorite streaming services together still pales in comparison to the average cable bill. TDG found that two thirds of cord cutters and "cord nevers" (people who have never paid for cable) said service expense was the key reason they do not use legacy pay TV services. There's also a generational shift: 61 percent of adults aged 18-29 say online streaming services are the primary way they watch TV.

Comments

Cut the cord? What cord?

[whoever57]

I doubt that my kids will ever have a cable-tv cord to cut. They are part of the cable-never generation.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[networkBoy]

I have never paid for cable. I've enjoyed it sometimes when others have footed the bill for various reasons and it's free to me. Price for what I want is the overwhelming reason. I want a small number of channels that are only available in the highest tier packages, and have no desire to pay that much for really only a couple shows.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Ol Olsoc]

I doubt that my kids will ever have a cable-tv cord to cut. They are part of the cable-never generation.

Any gain will be temporary, as Ajit Pai and his owners and handlers turn the internet into Cable TV mod two, with multi tier service, yearly double digit price inflation, and if you want the fast speeds, we have the ultra Patriotic rate of 500 dollars a month, with hundresd of high quality entertainment channels as part of the package. Featuring the Honey Boo-Boo network.

There will be a basic rate of 75 dollars a month that will be at 56K modem speed, and a 100 Megabyte cap.

Re: Cut the cord? What cord?

[Anonymous Coward]

True

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[rtb61]

For the rest of the more modern, democratic and free world (not the USA, rapidly degenerating into a corrupt autocracy), people are not actually cutting the cable, so much as replacing it with a better one, a more open one, one they share with the rest of the world and where all the worlds content will compete. You have seen nothing yet, the really big moment starts with effective and invisible auto translate services and then you will really see the Artificial Intelligence that is the Earth's computer network, really take off in surprising ways.

Some will violently resist, exposure to a world of ideas, they should simply be shunned and avoided, the path the US seems to be taking (the one being shunned and avoided by the rest, perhaps sharing that distinction with Saudi Arabia, Israel and North Korea), at least the government and the corrupt individuals who control it to serve their own individual interests.

PS Picking on Israel not for what they are doing to Palestinians but for what they are doing to Americans and their democracy, doing more to corrupt US democracy than any other country and in a very destructive and costly manner (they are even training US police forces to treat US citizens just like the Israelis treat Palestinians, you guys have to wake up to yourselves and kick the Israelis out of your government).

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Solandri]

Anyone about 50 or older is also part of the cable-never generation. They grew up on broadcast TV. Cable TV didn't really make a splash until the 1980s. So it's only those of us who were born between about 1970 to 2000 who have only ever gotten our TV through a cord.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[mikael]

I used to pay for cable. But once Virgin Media and Sky got into a squabble over the costs of channel syndication, and ended up blocking the the brand new series of Battlestar Galactica that was playing at the time (and was the only show I really wanted to watch), I canceled my entire cable subscription. Every month sales people would call me up asking if I wanted to upgrade my service. Every month. I would tell them exactly why I wasn't going to upgrade. They lost around £50/month for a good few years because of an ego fight between executives.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[havana9]

I am writing from Italy. Cable TV here never had a big train, some council houses complex and some "new Towns",made in the '70 and some tourist town like Venice and Siena had a CATV system that mainly was used to get rid of terrestrial antennas. Satellite and terrestrial pay TV have more diffusion
. Now, most people here are ok with free terrestrial TV and pay tv services are struggling too, because if you have decent programmes of free TV you can't possibly watch two program at the same time. The only people interested are the football and sports nuts and pubs, that are gathering sports nuts.
The biggest problem is that the advertising on paid channels is almost the same on the free channels, and you could easily record the transmission and skip the ads when if you try this with a pay tv you get DRM blocking you to record, you can easily decide to save money and stay with the free channels.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I moved into my townhome community, we had cable. It was a package deal, where the entire community of 800 got cable for about 10 dollars a month.

The contract expired, and in the time that passed, most of the channels we received had been repackaged into premium add-on packages. To receive almost equivalent services, the cable company offered us a renewal of 89 dollars a month, but to receive the same channels, we would have to pay 120 dollars a month.

As the entire community wasn't willing to make their cable bill nine times larger, and those who were willing argued for making it twelve times larger; eventually the entire community stopped the cable service. Some of the individual homes then signed on, some didn't.

At the time, that would have made my cable bill larger than my phone bill. I cut the cord then, and won't go back. Heck, it would have made my cable bill larger than my electric bill in the Winter (Houston summers would have had it fall short of the electric bill by about $80)

Sure, I could have signed up for "basic" cable at 65 a month. But that didn't even include "The History Channel" or any of the channels that had interesting shows. Now I use my Roku box, and get plenty of watchable content with a few premium subscriptions. I'm paying about $40 a month, all the subscriptions combined; but, I get decent movies, the better of the sitcoms and serials, and I don't have to miss a show because it is playing when I am not home.

Most people can only watch a few hours of TV a day, and do so typically between 6 PM and 11 PM. The idea of paying hundreds of dollars for the 80 to 120 + channels you aren't watching, just for the privilege of choosing among them , is just a bit crazy. And yes, you can DVR shows that are inconvenient, but why? There are now delivery channels that will play the show on your schedule. It's a far nicer convenience than DVR.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Xyrus]

The cable never generation is going to end this month, when ISPs turn the internet into cable tv.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[cmaurand]

The internet cowboys who built the internet in the first place will come in on the municipal fibre systems and offer un-metered bandwidth.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Cro Magnon]

Not really. When I was young, I had a black & white TV with 3 channels. I had cable for decades, and though I've trimmed the cord, I still haven't cut it entirely.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Ol Olsoc]

The internet cowboys who built the internet in the first place will come in on the municipal fibre systems and offer un-metered bandwidth.

That will probably be made illegal.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[datavirtue]

This Christmas is going to be a frenzy of cord cutting. These 4k smart TVs are crazy cheap and very good quality.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[datavirtue]

...and best of all...no commercials. The shows on cable are usually shite... but the commercials are an absolute shock to anyone who isnt used to them.

Re: Cut the cord? What cord?

[Anonymous Coward]

I cut directv this year as they've become too expensive for having NO content but garbage to offer. Hundreds of channels of shit to choose from. Netflix & amazon prime streaming are really cheap with plenty of content. Fuck the corporations anywhere you can.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[MerlTurkin]

Right on! It's a total rip off. F**K CABLE.

Re: Cut the cord? What cord?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but content often gets butchered, sometimes to the point of making the show unwatchable.

Re:Cut the cord? What cord?

[Ranbot]

Anyone about 50 or older is also part of the cable-never generation. They grew up on broadcast TV. Cable TV didn't really make a splash until the 1980s. So it's only those of us who were born between about 1970 to 2000 who have only ever gotten our TV through a cord.

Or if you currently live in or grew up in a rural area.* I am in my mid-30's and I never had cable TV until I went off to college (1998), because my parent's house is on a gravel road in rural New England. It was only 3-4 years ago that cable TV and internet even became an option for my parents. In fact, my parents never got a "cord" to cut, because they only hooked up to cable internet, kept using the antenna for local stations like they always did, and my wife and I had a spare device registry under our Netflix account we set them up on.

* - excluding satellite/Dish Network, which is often the only option in rural areas for "cable-like" TV service

I think it comes a lot sooner

[oldgraybeard]

But we will know where we are at in 5 years

Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[JoeyRox]

Should you decide to cancel our fine cable TV package. Once the repeal of net neutrality is complete you might letters like this from your favorite cable-based internet provider.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[110010001000]

Exactly. The only streaming service Comcast is going to let through is Netflix because they partner with them. The rest will either need to pay a fee to Comcast or get throttled.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

It's best you get an antenna for any existing OTA HD. There is a lot of local content you can peruse to make up the slack.. alongside streaming options. Sadly the standards group and local broadcasters are now trying to ram through another upgrade that will make QAM obsolete. They are lobbying for ATSC3 which ties you to a new set-top box instead of your current TV.. even though you have an outdoor antenna and a functioning ATSC/NTSC tuner! Once again the content providers.. whether through cable or OTA... introduce a standard that requires external devices that they can own and restrict.. and you have to pay to own.

Who here agrees that OTA HDTV is losing subscriptions because they don't support 4K? Nobody! When has any OTA HDTV provider "lost" subscriptions? OTA HDTV for the last 60+ years is the Internet equivalent of UDP. Only by forcing us to use set-top boxes can they monetize their expenditures.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Berkyjay]

Meh, if they do try this extortion BS I'll just stop watching TV and movies altogether and go play more video games and go out hiking more often. It'll probably be the best thing to ever happen to me.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be. But may be, by then, we'll have 5G infrastructure ready and several new (but existing cellcular) players joining them to compete to provide out network access.
They COULD all offer tiered service, but my bet is there will be enough competition to do that.
For me, it'll be from currently ONE reasonable cable company (Spectrum) to at least 4 companies (Spectrum, Verizon, ATT, Sprint or Tmobile) trying to get my business.
I can already supplement my cable internet access with 3 hotspots from 3 seperate LTE phones with unlimited data (which is limited to 22 GB on hotspot)

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[ranton]

Cable companies have already made cord cutting not a very viable option for actually saving money. My cable bill is $120 (plus taxes and fees) which pays for Internet and a 220 channel lineup plus HBO. Internet alone is $80. Netflix is $14 and Hulu is $8, so even with just those two services I would be down to a grand total of $18 in savings each month by cutting the cord.

By 2030, cable television could just be included with your internet connection. The movie studios and sports leagues would just get paid from the Internet portion of your bill.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[tlhIngan]

Meh, if they do try this extortion BS I'll just stop watching TV and movies altogether and go play more video games and go out hiking more often. It'll probably be the best thing to ever happen to me.

Get hiking, then. Video games will be throttled to heck and back as best as they can, making multiplayer online gaming impossible unless you subscribe to the package. Perhaps your single player game is unaffected, if you can get it downloaded in the first place...

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

News on cellphone, dvds from public library. Screw you hippy!

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Berkyjay]

making multiplayer online gaming impossible unless you subscribe to the package.

Dear Odin I don't play online games. What am I? 12?

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

>Netflix is $14 and Hulu is $8, so even with just those two services I would be down to a grand total of $18 in savings each month by cutting the cord.

That may be true but instead of wading through 200 channels that probably aren't playing anything you want to watch, you can pick the shows you want and when you want to watch them. IMO that's $18 less for a much better experience. Also, NF is only $14 a month if you need 4 simultaneous streams and/or UHD, which cable doesn't even offer.

Re:Shame if your streaming service stopped working

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously a video game player condescending to another video game player, because they play a different type of video game then you???

I predict AI will cut it for you in yr flying car

[Tablizer]

Predictions are like assholes: everyone has one and they all stink.

If I were Comcast and both smart and evil

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

What I would do is build our own streaming service on top of the Comcast network and combine the best of YouTube and NetFlix. Key features:

1. Open speech platform; all legal speech in the US is uncensored.
2. All content from day one must be accurately labeled in an ESRB-style system with a lot of flexibility.
3. Built in monetization for all content creators.
4. Merge it with the groups that handle the existing VoD so it has access to all of that streaming content up front.

Who needs net neutrality? Why we have the most open platform in the US and it is built-in, nearly ad-free for Comcast customers.

Re:If I were Comcast and both smart and evil

[tepples]

All content from day one must be accurately labeled in an ESRB-style system

Who pays for age classification of amateur or low-budget professional video?

Re:If I were Comcast and both smart and evil

[cervesaebraciator]

One could create a three tier rating system:

• The first tier is third party, like the current ESRB.
• The third tier is 'Self-Reported' and is labeled as such. Viewers could use their own discretion about whether to trust such ratings, and could input into the system whether they agree or disagree with the rating. Content creators would have at built-in albeit limited incentive to try and self-assess accurately, since they know the demographic they want to attract.
• The second tier would be something like 'Self-Reported, Verified'. This would go to content creators who self-assess and have a long track record of agreement with viewers about the accuracy of their self-assessment.

Of course, a few problems and abuses for this system already occur to me. But I don't think it'd be impossible to put together a system that crowdsources reputation. Maybe if they called in karma it'd all work out.

Re:If I were Comcast and both smart and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave it to a guy who brags about supporting trump and writing ERP bullshit all day in his username :(

This is a stupid idea for infinity reasons

Dropped it, don't even think about it

[justthinkit]

Took me a while to drop it (like two months ago) but I haven't even replaced it with OTA or Hulu. Just gone, buh bye.

Re:Dropped it, don't even think about it

[Major_Disorder]

Same here. A few years back I bought my dream house, and had not yet sold my old place. I knew money was going to be really tight until the old place sold. So I cancelled my cable. It was a little tough for the first two weeks or so, but after that I found that I had other things to do.
Three months later when my old place finally sold, I never even considered getting cable TV again.
Now at four years with out cable, and not missing it.

Those who can will

[Anonymous Coward]

light the fiber.

Um. no, no we won't

[rsilvergun]

we'll still be corded in paying for internet. And thanks to the death of Net Neutrality we'll be paying more than ever for the exact same (or less) content.

Re:Um. no, no we won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Way too true. Not watching broadcast TV doesn't stop how the internet is delivered. And with the loss of Neutrality, everything will cost a lot more. So much so that having a 'full premium cable TV package' might be cheaper than internet alone.

Re:Um. no, no we won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap! You mean nobody is going to spend a fuckton of money running cables around the area and putting in big iron routers and give me free internet! God damn collusion. We need more competition!

Re:Um. no, no we won't

[ChrisMaple]

I see you've swallowed the anti-capitalist Net Neutrality trick hook, line, and sinker. P.T. Barnum had you pegged.

40% ?

[Templer421]

Think it will be 80% or more.

Re:40% ?

[AvitarX]

Yeah, 40 seems really low.

It's be shocked if Comcast doesn't basically turn into an ISP, with access costing about $120, sure, they'll offer content subs, but it will be as a stand alone app that works on any internet. They'll ramp up internet costs (they already are in my area) to make up for lost revenue.

Landline Phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Cable TV is going the way of the landline phone, irrelevant. It's wishful thinking on the part of the ISP if they think that they'll even have one quarter of their current customers in 2030.

100% of us will get over fossil fuels, fictional..

[Anonymous Coward]

'society', wmd on credit & more,, cease fire stand down,, honor thy moms...

The joke is on us, really.

[Picodon]

The irony is that, while “cutting the cord” of cable television, we subscribe to service that uses the very same cable, except in a way for which it was not designed (unicast vs. broadcast) and is ill-suited. We thus end up obtaining even worse quality of service for about the same price, from the exact same people, who are preparing to screw us even further by changing the rules of service back to... those of cable television. Checkmate. Happy future, everyone.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[NeumannCons]

Actually, cable is rapidly becoming more and more designed for high-speed data (more accurately bi-directional high speed data).

Cable companies (MSOs - or Multi Systems Operators) have been upgrading their infrastructure (HFC or Hybrid Fiber Coaxial) for years now by replacing main trunks with fiber, re-allocating frequency ranges from TV to data, and developing new standards for equipment in the home (DOCSIS). While the original equipment was not really designed to support bi-directional data, the last decades improvements are all about making sure they cater to their current customers which more and more just want high-speed data. While I'm not a fan of cable companies, I think they see the direction things are headed in and are making sure they position themselves to survive the loss of TV subscribers.

Docsis 1.0 (1997) supported 10Mb/s. DOCSIS3 3.1 (2017) supports 10Gb/s transfer speeds. FTTH (Fiber to the home) is likely the next "big thing" (or possibly wi-max or its successor). Cable companies already have huge amounts of fiber on poles to to aggregate customers data. At this point, they're looking at ways of expanding that reach for the last mile.

Re: The joke is on us, really.

[gearloos]

Iâ(TM)m guessing 5g will eventually have a big impact.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Solandri]

we subscribe to service that uses the very same cable, except in a way for which it was not designed (unicast vs. broadcast) and is ill-suited.

That problem was already solved in the late 1990s. Companies like Akamai and Cloudflare developed content delivery networks - oft-requested online content was cached closer to the destination, relieving much of the transmission bandwidth load from the Internet backbones (the data only needed to be transmitted once to each local CDN). This is what allows websites like CNN to work even when the number of page requests they get per second exceeds even what their server farm could handle (e.g. 9/11).

The problem is the last-mile ISPs are actively refusing to take advantage of CDNs. Netflix even offered their CDN caching server hardware for free to Verizon, Comcast, et al so that customers streaming Netflix content wouldn't put any additional load on the ISP's upstream bandwidth. The ISPs refused. They manufactured a nonexistent Netflix bandwidth problem just so they could have an excuse for throttling Netflix, as part of their scheme to justify Internet fast lanes.

If everyone is requesting the same data (even not at the same time), the bandwidth problem is trivially solved by local caching. The only content for which unicast is ill-suited is when everyone requests different data. And broadcast is even worse than unicast at solving that problem.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Picodon]

As you wrote, the problem mostly lies within the last mile. But caching is not a complete solution, because the problem is also about getting good performance when (a) sending data upstream (serving data, VoIP, etc.), (b) when connecting to a variety of remote servers (not just the handful of “popular” ISP-endorsed big players like Netflix, YouTube, etc., who can afford to pay their way to ensure good delivery through locally distributed caches), and (c) when using end-to-end encryption, which effectively makes everyone transmit different data.

CDN is based on the idea that many people will consume the same content, produced by a small number of publishers. Its design is absolutely sound for those use cases but, fundamentally, it’s also rather similar to the distribution model of television networks. And it seems to illustrate rather well the vision that large ISPs like Comcast appear to embrace: a network where consumers... just consume (download) whatever is made available to them, produced and transmitted by a handful of major players who can negotiate terms between themselves in backroom deals. First, it’s easier/cheaper to implement (because traffic can be improved through local caching instead of deploying fiber to the home, for example); and it gives them great leverage over consumers and small businesses who, unable to properly serve data, must rely on major cloud operators for everything. There lies the rub: we end up financing a network that doesn’t truly serve our needs and brings us back to the servitude associated to old school television or telephone service and their quasi-monopolies. A few wealthy players, with millions (or billions) of dependent users...

But I could have the wrong impression: see NeumannCons’s interesting answer, above, which offers a much more positive outlook. I only hope that he/she’s right.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[drinkypoo]

At this point, they're looking at ways of expanding that reach for the last mile.

No, no they are not. They do not give a fuck about the last mile. That's why people on both ends of the loop road I am on have cable, and I don't. The plant will reach here, but not enough people lived out here to bother running the cable another mile or two.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Kjella]

The irony is that, while âoecutting the cordâ of cable television, we subscribe to service that uses the very same cable, except in a way for which it was not designed (unicast vs. broadcast) and is ill-suited.

In theory it is, in practice they've pulled fiber far enough that your local loop is more like a small token ring network than the mass broadcast system it used to be. It's just not worth digging up every driveway and switching all the boxes, it only takes 25 Mbit/s to download a UHD Netflix stream but DOCSIS 3.1 supports up to 10 Gbit/s. It's like saying you should help protect the power grid from brown-outs by brushing your teeth manually instead of using an electric toothbrush, while ignoring the Tesla charging in the driveway. I'm sure they'd love to go back to being a monopolist and that Netlix and YouTube would go away, but whether it's as broadcast or unicast IPTV w/CDNs is totally irrelevant. It's as irrelevant as whether the "broadband" connection is actually baseband.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[NeumannCons]

It's a matter of cost. When technology makes it possible to expand the last mile *and make it profitable* they will do so.

Businesses are not charities. The only reason they'll spend millions so they can charge you $70 a month is if they're legislated to do so (like they required the phone company to install phone lines in farm land).

A lot of former communist countries experienced years of lack of investment in their phone system when under communist rule - only the elite were able to get phones. After the fall, no one bothered running lines anywhere - everyone leapfrogged and moved to cell phones. I wonder if something similar will occur (such as wimax or 5g).

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Cajun Hell]

we subscribe to service that uses the very same cable, except in a way for which it was not designed (unicast vs. broadcast) and is ill-suited.

That problem was already solved in the late 1990s. [Amakai]

It was solved before that. My mid-1990s ISP had Usenet, just like most everyone else's ISP back then. But now Usenet servers are just run by a small handful of companies, so I'm going through the whole internet instead of just downloading from a building a few miles away.

I'm sure there's a business case for them not doing it; apparently using more bandwidth is cheaper than running a computer and some disks. Or not enough customers use it, or the binaries groups make "some disks" be a fuckton more expensive than I'm imagining, or .. something.

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Picodon]

Interesting! Certainly, the high throughput of DOCSIS 3.1, with possible full-duplex on the horizon, seems attractive. Whether this translates in high residential bi-directional performance presumably depends on several factors. First, technical issues, like the size of a serving area (10 Gb/s is great, until it’s shared by 2000 households!); or the way collisions are handled, impacting latency (in the typical urban neighbourhood, how many modems are typically connected to the same upstream port?); or how much noise is induced on the line. Then there is marketing strategy. I can see how cable companies would be interested in improving upstream service for business customers, but I am still dubious about their commitment to residential customers (besides their interest in reselling their own telephony services, whose quality of service owes more to the use of preferential service identifiers than to improvements in general upstream capability). I interpret their active involvement with content production and services (like telephony), and their disinterest in sticking to neutral data transmission (including their rejection of network neutrality) as a sign that they just want residential customers to download and consume. And, fortunately for them (unfortunately for us), they don’t need to invest in FTTH to implement that vision!

I hope that I am wrong, that the cable infrastructure connecting residential modems will turn out to be technically capable of supporting heavy bi-directional traffic (without having to dig out everything and replace it with fiber, which is a nice but apparently distant prospect), and that cable companies will sell us access on terms that enable us to freely use the network as we see fit. But, in the current context, I’ll have to see it to believe it!

Re:The joke is on us, really.

[Picodon]

I’ve been reading that 2000 homes passed per upstream port is reasonable... That doesn’t sound like a “small token ring network” to me! If it’s only a dozen active cable modems, then you’re definitely right. Otherwise, it limits what people can do with their connection. Just downloading content (like browsing the web or streaming video), sure, no problem. Anything else, well... I foresee that cable companies will probably keep saying that we don’t need it!

Only 40%

[kamapuaa]

Aside from my retired parents, I don't even know anybody who pays for cable, everybody Netflixes or Hulus or whatever. I wonder what the number would be if it didn't include people who get basic cable thrown in with the Internet?

Re:Only 40%

[AvitarX]

I had to strong arm them into not giving me basic cable.

It was $10/month less to take it. I told them they'd have to give me a bigger discount to store their box in my basement, as I'd inevitably lose it and owe money when I moved.

I don't want to waste TV stand space, and I don't want to waste an HDMI hole on their stupid box that has a terrible remote, terrible TV guide, and terrible lag when interacting.

They eventually gave me internet alone for the cheaper price.

Re:Only 40%

[J053]

It's usually the opposite - you have to get "basic digital cable" in order to get Internet service.

Re:Only 40%

[NeumannCons]

I'm a cable never.

You're correct - older folks who don't want to be on the phone for an hour arranging a better deal. The biggest crowd though is the sports fans. Finding (reliable) alternatives is difficult. Cable companies are constantly working exclusive deals to extend this revenue stream. Even purchasing an MLB tv subscription (from the MLB) does not give me access all the regular season games - ridiculous. But the millions cable TV offered them obviously eclipsed the loss of money from fed up mlb.tv subscribers who quit the service.

BTW The $150 pass, also gives me access to NONE of the post season games. Sigh.

Re:Only 40%

[Migraineman]

That's my situation. There is no "no cable" option on the plans from the sole vendor in my area. (I live in a rural area, so there's zero competition.)

Haha BTFO stupid yanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yanks were to stupid to be allowed on the internet anyway.

Re:Haha BTFO stupid yanks

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet was great when it was just Americans. Then the rest of the world fucked it up. As usual.

Re: Haha BTFO stupid yanks

[Anonymous Coward]

It all went South, in September...

eh, horse shit

[Hugh Jorgen]

Bandwidth and throughput caps, inconsistent UIs, buffering will be the end of "cord cutting." Every app on the ROKU has a different UI, remote button functions. It sucks and it's getting worse, not better. After ditching DTV five years ago, I am going back and keeping Netflix and Amazon Prime (only because it's "free" with Prime).

Re:eh, horse shit

[losfromla]

You should find more people that think like you and start a club. Might want to invite VHS enthusiasts as well to increase membership.

Re:eh, horse shit

[Hugh Jorgen]

Who mentioned VHS? Not me. The hodgepodge of multiple services it takes to replicate what Dave and Charlie offer means using multiple apps that cost more than Charlie or Dave's services cost ...

Good Riddance

[DatbeDank]

It's time for Hollywood's free cash cow to dry up. There's absolutely no reason cable TV should cost $100+.

I remember a time when cable cost $30 a month for about 60-70ish channels. Maybe their overpaid actors and production staff will take a pay cut if they want to survive /sarcasm

Re: Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe inflation is a thing.

Re:Good Riddance

[Anubis IV]

It's time for Hollywood's free cash cow to dry up. There's absolutely no reason cable TV should cost $100+.

I remember a time when cable cost $30 a month for about 60-70ish channels. Maybe their overpaid actors and production staff will take a pay cut if they want to survive /sarcasm

Swap “channels” for “mbps” and you’ll suddenly realize it’s actually just more of the same. You’re paying the same people. You just swapped the product. Give it a few years and you’ll be thinking fondly of what you paid back, well, now.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is laughing all the way to the bank. Though the indie scene has been exploding in popularity, Hollywood itself has still been producing roughly the same number of feature length films each year for the last three decades, with no signs of slowing down. With cable TV on the way out and streaming on demand on the way in, companies like Disney are able to directly monetize their catalogs without the middle men. Which is exactly what Disney is doing, what with their announcement that they’re pulling their content from Netflix and moving it to their own streaming service in the next year or two.

So sure, I agree that there’s no reason it should cost what it does. There’s also no reason my cable ISP charges me 2x what it charged two years ago, even though my plan hasn’t changed. Well, other than the fact that the sole DSL competitor in the area got bought out and then scaled back its operations around that time, leaving us with 0 broadband alternatives.

Re:Good Riddance

[Kjella]

Meh, if you want cheap crap there's now a zillion channels on YouTube for free. A "full season" of something like GoT, Westworld, American Gods, Legion, Stranger Things, The Handmaid's Tale, Vikings etc. is usually around 10 hours of actual show, divide by production cost and it's going to be pretty expensive per minute. But to me it'd be a little bit like comparing a fine restaurant to meal prices at McDonald's, people have different tastes though. I think I'd still want some "premium" content, maybe even pay more for the best and less for the filler. Personally I'd have very little interest in the "Reality TV" tier full of cheap shows, which is what you get when you pay peanuts. YMMV - which is why it shouldn't be tied to your Internet connection.

Re:Good Riddance

[geekmux]

It's time for Hollywood's free cash cow to dry up. There's absolutely no reason cable TV should cost $100+.

I remember a time when cable cost $30 a month for about 60-70ish channels. Maybe their overpaid actors and production staff will take a pay cut if they want to survive /sarcasm

What do you mean you "remember a time"? My package deal right now runs about $100/month for 100Mb internet, home phone with unlimited long distance calling, and cable TV with over 400 channels. That's essentially paying around $33/month for over 400 HD channels, including a DVR. I remember a time when just the long distance bill was $30 a month.

Yes, that package is offered at an introductory price that's good for a year (normal price is around $130), but after a year I'll simply pressure my current provider with the competitor's introductory price.

And Hollywood is only getting greedier. Today's cable bill is tomorrows streaming providers who continue to fracture content across a dozen+ services to force you to "only" pay $9.99/month for each. The future is more revenue, not less.

Re:Good Riddance

[Neuronwelder]

I think it's upper management taking the lion's share of the money as they do everywhere.

You know it costs you $9/mo

[rsilvergun]

to provide you with internet. Comcast admitted that in their SEC filing. They can lie to you, they can lie to congress, they can lie to their priest for Christ's sake. But they can not and will not lie to their investors.

As for that wire, you and me already paid for it in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks. They didn't spend a dime of their own money. You don't get rich spending your own money. That's for chumps & working stiffs like me and you.

Dead before then.

[Anonymous Coward]

By 2030 I'd be surprised if the US cable industry will actually still exist, outside some special use cases. If they haven't migrated to a fundamentally streaming based operation the fixed costs of operation will mean they can't afford content to keep users hooked - it isn't a proportionate thing, eventually it falls off a cliff.

As far as I can see news and sport/events are the only things where a broadcasting model makes sense. And that's not enough to keep the model valid.

Re:Dead before then.

[Anonymous Coward]

i get my hockey over the internet, and for the other 3 months I just do something else.

Re:Dead before then.

[PPH]

I live in Seattle. We don't need hockey. We have bum fights.

Re:Dead before then.

[WillAffleckUW]

No, dude, we're getting both hockey (NHL) and basketball (NBA) teams this year, don't you read the dead tree paper? Seriously, at Key Arena.

Bum fights are in Kent, not Seattle.

Re:Dead before then.

[PPH]

Bum fights are in Kent, not Seattle.

[Sigh] Seattle loses another sports franchise.

Regional monopolies, yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one way to get internet (aside from dialup or sat). Here's what happens if I "cut the cord". My bill goes from $70 for cable+internet, to $70 for internet.

Compulsory License for Video

[crow]

What we (as consumers) really need is compulsory licensing for video. Let the various streaming services compete based on their new material, but require that after some time (say three years from the the first streaming or ten years if it was never streamed), all video must be licensed for streaming on a per-minute basis. I might set the rate at $10/month divided by the average number of hours a typical household streams, with the rate decreasing based on the age of the video.

So say the average household streams 100 hours/month, so the base rate is $0.10/hour (measured in full minutes). A Netflix original show would be available at that rate on Amazon after three years. Every year the rate would drop by $0.002/hour, so five years later it's $0.09/hour.

Consumers would be able to subscribe to only one service and have access to every video ever made, excluding new releases. You might choose to subscribe to a premium service with awesome new shows, or you might choose to subscribe to a discount service that only has older shows. You might subscribe to a service where you prepay for a number of hours of TV instead of an all-you-can-watch model.

Re:Compulsory License for Video

[avandesande]

I wouldn't be surprised if they made more money than they do with their current licensing scheme...

Re:Compulsory License for Video

[Anonymous Coward]

What we (as consumers) really need is compulsory licensing for video. Let the various streaming services compete based on their new material, but require that after some time (say three years from the the first streaming or ten years if it was never streamed), all video must be licensed for streaming on a per-minute basis. I might set the rate at $10/month divided by the average number of hours a typical household streams, with the rate decreasing based on the age of the video.

So say the average household streams 100 hours/month, so the base rate is $0.10/hour (measured in full minutes). A Netflix original show would be available at that rate on Amazon after three years. Every year the rate would drop by $0.002/hour, so five years later it's $0.09/hour.

Consumers would be able to subscribe to only one service and have access to every video ever made, excluding new releases. You might choose to subscribe to a premium service with awesome new shows, or you might choose to subscribe to a discount service that only has older shows. You might subscribe to a service where you prepay for a number of hours of TV instead of an all-you-can-watch model.

The lawyers anticipated this a long time ago, and through lobbying and other means of influence they've ensured that the system is setup in such a way as to preclude it. For each party involved in the distribution of copyrighted to material to have to negotiate (and often re-negotiate) contracts for the entire (excessively long) duration of copyright is a huge source of income for the legal profession, and they're not about to give that up.

The actual text of the Constitution does not require anything along the lines of what has actually been implemented by the lawyers. It's actually rather vague (what exactly does a "limited time" mean - it certainly doesn't have to be anywhere near what the current system prescribes).

This legal ethics problem is why there are so many strange rules about access to sports videos - instead of a simple rule like the one you propose, there are lots of complex contracts and the interactions between them create the limitations that block access, which in turn creates a demand for people to pirate the videos. Allowing the system to work this way is extremely unethical, and thus violates the 9th Amendment right to ethical practice of law (as well as a bunch of other 9th Amendment rights) - the lawyers writing these contracts, and the judges upholding the current system are violating the Bill of Rights - but so long as the public remains ignorant little can be done about this blatant violation of the highest law in the land.

It's a lot like slavery and the later "Jim Crow" laws: unethical people with power and influence will do bad things, and turn the legal system into something that serves them instead of serving the public, and it takes a huge public effort over many decades (or an incredibly bloody Civil War) to undo the damage. This is the dark side of the practice of law. The USA has particularly bad problems in this regard, but it's certainly not the only country with such problems (look at how long it took to win the battle for the right to roam in Britain). Fix the legal ethics problems and most of the piracy will go away - it will disappear with the need.

40 pct by 2030?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who came up with this probably went to business school. A second tier one at that.

Net neutrality

[bigdavex]

With no net neutrality, the balance of power has shifted. I'm going to guess the trend the slows down as OTT services have to pay a big premium to deliver content.

Re:Net neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, never thought I would hear Over The Top in reference to home ISPs.

Woe is the day when ordinary Internet service and unfiltered IP is considered OTT of your cable company's internet package.

Oh, I'm sure cable companies would love to copy the mobile carriers.

Included: $49.99 200Mbps "Internet" - Comcast + NBC + Hulu streaming + Facebook/Internet.org Free Basics

Plus, choose an additional package for extra optional service:
$9.99 - Facebook + Web + Email
$19.99 - Facebook HD + Skype + Web + Email
$29.99 - Netflix HD + Facebook HD + HBO HD + Standard Definition Web
$49.99 - HD Web (including Youtube) (does not include HBO)
$59.99 - Unlimited Web Plus (includes HBO and all streaming services)

How many people would shell out the extra $20 for "HD Web" when they can already get Facebook and most things HD. YouTube would be nice in HD but is it work the $20? Also you want HBO so it would be a shame to lose that.

You mean the same cord that provides internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one will be "cutting the cord" since the same cord that provides paid TV also provides the internet required for the alternative paid TV. Media/Internet providers will adjust accordingly and no one will be saving any money.

Re:You mean the same cord that provides internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you're right for a lot of people, but I'm also sure you're wrong for a lot of people too.

I can literally get internet service without any wire at all. One of my local ISPs will sell you a parabolic antenna that you put on your roof, and point it at the top of the tallest building in town. As long as you have line-of-sight, you're good.

Artificial Scarcity

[nickmalthus]

Yes without Net Neutrality legal protections the telcom syndicate will have free reign to perform deep packet inspection and toll video and voice with whatever fee they can legally extort. One way or another they will find a way to abuse their privileged government status to enact artificial scarcity and charge premiums.

Unambitious target

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if they said 40% by 2020, that would be more startling, although still quite plausible. But by 2030 - does anyone seriously doubt that will be more than met?

WTF 2030? try in the next few years

[EmperorOfCanada]

Getting rid of cable TV is pretty much going to become a national pasttime. Things like sports have been shooting themselves in the face and they are one of the few reasons to even have cable for some people.

already achieved.

[Anonymous Coward]

40 percent of america never had cable or satellite television in the first place.

Donâ(TM)t worry Ajit Pai is in the hardware s

[gearloos]

Cutting the cord? Doesnâ(TM)t matter if Ajit Pai gets his way. Youâ(TM)ll safely have a steel clad extension cord so cut away, wonâ(TM)t bother big media as they still gotcha.

It's not just cost

[Anonymous Coward]

For me one of the major reasons is what you actually get.
Why would I pay for 60+ channels of crap where I have no control over what I watch and when?

Re:It's not just cost

[mikael]

The cable companies usually provide a free personal video recorder (PVR) within the cable box. You can set the timer to record programs from up to three different channels simultaneously. Then you can choose where and when you want to watch programming.

That's really the difference between the 1980's and present day. Back then, *everyone* had to watch the same program at the same time if they wanted to be cool and hip with their friends. Sometimes, teachers would recommend that you watch a particular science documentary. Now you can usually find any particular video on Youtube

TV and Movies are for LOSERS

[Anonymous Coward]

WHILE THE MOON IS AN ARTIFICIAL ALIEN BASE THAT SPIES ON US. Face it, theres no terrain or chemical composition in common with earth, there aint no goddamn trees there, it has a perfect size and distance to make a total solar eclipse, its massively 1/4 the size of earth, we pretend to scientifically believe that it spins on its axis, and military remote viewers have seen the soul energy of the freshly dead go into a 7-mile tall crystal with a cube on top

Re:TV and Movies are for LOSERS

[Anonymous Coward]

That's utter nonsense!

Cheese is not nearly strong enough to support a seven-mile-high structure...

broadcast is good for live content and sterming ne

[Joe_Dragon]

broadcast is good for live content and steaming needs to have off line download / being able to que and buffer shows say nearing the end of one episode let you start buffering the next one. or even say let some buffer 4K on a slow link that can just stream HP live.

Re: Shame if your streaming service stopped workin

[sound vision]

I've reached the destination you are pondering, years ago already. I don't subscribe to cable TV, satellite, "on demand" anything, or "streaming services". Very rarely even do I torrent such entertainment these days. There ARE totally other things to do to fill up any empty hours you might find in your day.

But this funny business with net neutrality is designed exactly for people like you and me. We say we don't want it, and we won't pay... the cable company says "Yes you will, unless you also want us to cut off Facebook and YouTube." (Or meter your internet back to the 90s, or whatever other schemes they can come up with to keep it palatable while maintaining the illusion of choice and a free market.) Crapcast never envisioned half or more of the population going without TV, any more than the power companies expect people to start deciding they don't need electricity in 2018. In today's corporate welfare state, your right to choose how to spend your money is secondary to the special interests' "right to profit".

The term does not make sense anymore

[ruddk]

The term does not make sense anymore when you are just diverting your money to streaming subscriptions, and you need a bunch of those to get the shows you want.
And now they are starting to bundle streaming subscriptions with your internet connection or cell phone plan.

The good part right now is that I can still choose not to get Netflix, HBO etc with my internet connection, and I can choose to only have 1 or no subscription to any streaming service.

Since I am not really into TV series or movies at the moment, I have no subscriptions, but I might get Netflix,HBO or Amazon and cycle between them on a yearly basis.

this number seems low

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm almost 50, I've never paid for cable. I love streaming services. Cable seems so horrific to me with its commercials (I was recently at my brother's for Thanksgiving and saw TV commercials for the first time in years). My kids have almost never seen TV commercials and cannot stand watching anything that has them interrupt the show.

5G

[zaax]

About time Google or Netfix brought the Cell towers, as if 5G is as fast as predicted it will mean Telecos and cable cos have lost the lot.

Cable turned into a Smartphone.

[geekmux]

One generations cable bill is another generations unlimited smartphone bill. This isn't about cost. It's about priorities.

And as online streaming services continue to fracture content and offer exclusive content, I have a feeling consumers are going to be shelling out essentially a cable bills worth of money to get what they want. The laughable irony here is watching the cable-cutting generation pay for 400,000 channels of streaming shit they'll never watch in order to get the 100 channels they want, which was essentially the entire fucking argument against bundled cable service.

Get an antenna

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone approaching retirement we cut the cable this summer. I put an antenna on the roof and it brings me over 30 channels and I get all the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS). And, it doesn't have to be your granddads big metal monster. We've had Netflix and Amazon Prime for years. Between the antenna and streaming we have more free or almost free content than we can ever watch. I always thought the pricing model for cable TV is backwards. The networks charge huge amounts to deliver an audience to advertisers. The more people watching a show the more they charge. Cable makes it possible for even more people to watch the show; and the networks can charge the advertiser more. Instead the cable companies have to pay a carriage fee to the networks to show their content. The networks should be paying the cable companies for helping them reach a larger audience. We're being scammed. Get an antenna!

Cord cutting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at the age where I'm taking care of my mother in her later years. If it weren't for her the cord would be completely cut at my house. I went and bought all the movies and TV shows I could ever want to watch on DVD and placed them all on a media drive while the DVDs sit in storage. Never again will I need cable and if they make the Internet contingent on getting cable I won't have that as well. I came from a time when PC's didn't need to be on the internet. I can go back if I have to. Sucks for those who didn't but oh well.

Honestly I got better quality TV when I only had 13 channels on the box because that's all they had and had to get up and manually change the channel on the set.

Next big story is "cut the home Internet cord"

[Anonymous Coward]

The next big story is when the "cut the cord" means to ditch your home Internet connection. If you are not a large business or serious tech you have no need for home Internet. With unlimited data and multi-deployments of 5G in 2018 you will have all the speed you need from you phone. Smart TV's will come with a cellar modem installed, along with everything else. You will just add them to you data plan.
What about poor cell areas? There will be a slew of hardware that will come to market to help. There is already more coverage for cell then wire based Internet today and its growing. https://www.droid-life.com/2017/11/13/verizon-att-building-hundreds-new-cell-towers-together/
The battle will be who owns the endpoints. We see all this crap about net neutrality, yet just today google bared youtube on amazon devices! Free speech will be dead, AT&T and Verizon will block access to websites, Google, Yahoo, Bing, will purge search engines of "fringe thought" such as this, and Google and Amazon will block it from your endpoint! Everything will soon be hate speech!

Freedom of travel will be dead too. As the push for self driving cars goes uninhibited, so will the assault on your freedom to travel. Today you buy a car, get into it and drive. Anyone can get a license. In the future we will all love the self driving car, naps on long trips, freedom to play on your cellular Internet. It will be bliss, here is the catch, Maintenance! Once a large percentage of self driving cars hit the roadways it will quickly be proven that they are safer then ones piloted by humans. This will push for humans to be removed from driving via federal and local laws. Legislation bought and paid for by big tech companies who will also filter you opposition to such laws! Once the such laws pass and they will mark my words. The car manufactures will quickly pass laws that will allow them to deactivate your car if fail dangerously to keep up with updates and maintenance. For the good of all people right? Who wants a dangerous firmware version 5s on the streets when bug'd fixed version 6 is out? Well imagine Ford or GM by law forcing you to pay a monthly maintenance fee? You would not be able to go to Jiffy Lube to get a firmware update. So what do you think they will charge? I'll give you a hit, "what ever they want". So car owner ship for 50% of the populous will disappear. What do you think companies like Uber will charge to transport those people? Try taking a hour drive in a cab today, and multiply that by X......
There are other issues, what happens when there is a hurricane, forest fire, etc. There will not be enough cars or perhaps Uber will just charge "Surge fees" https://bossip.com/1267802/surge-pricing-gone-crazy-man-charged-1114-71-for-60-minute-uber-ride-on-new-years-eve/
What if there is a problem with the network or an attack? I was in DC on 9/11 they shut down the metro an left us to walk, luckily some bystander picked me up in their CAR!!!!.
This transportation will not stop with cars, the same will take place with Big Rigs. City dwellers will be hit hard, as prices for goods will skyrocket. I wonder if there will be laws baring you from growing a garden. There are already laws prevent you from catching rain water, drilling wells and disconnecting from the power grid even if you are self sufficient on solar or wind.

Dad, please replay this movie :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

My kids when they watched TV for the first time at reception of doctors office, asked me to replay some movies :-)
They have no idea about TV at all. I belong to the group of people who will never sign contract with content streaming service provider which is ISP at the same time.

Only reason I haven't done it is CBC

[WillAffleckUW]

If I could only get CBC over the air on my HDTV antenna, which receives higher quality signals (1080p) than my cable provider (1080i), I would cancel my cable entirely.

98 percent of the channels could disappear, because it turns out most of the ones I want are already over the air.

In the 1980s, almost nobody had cable

[omfglearntoplay]

Where are the stats? I'm willing to bet way less than 15% of the population had cable in the US in the mid 1980s. We all should cut the cord, it's crap. The problem is the net neutrality rules they are quickly getting in their favor so that even after you cut the cord, they still have you where they want you.

Re:I predict AI will cut it for you in yr flying c

[omfglearntoplay]

Somebody mod this post up, made me laugh. :)

Most likely......

[MerlTurkin]

Before 2030. They are well on their way NOW. FU Spectrum!

Not if...

[sydbarrett74]

...the future looks like siloed streaming services. Channel-surfing looks a lot better when the alternative is 15-20 streaming services (offering exclusive content that the producer refuses to offer elsewhere), each costing $10-20/month.