Cut the cord 3 years ago, and have never been happier. Had Sling TV for a while, that was alright. YouTube TV came available in my area, tried that out and liked it a little better than Sling and switched to that.
I get my internet from the local phone company, who has no skin in the content provider arena, and I couldn't be happier. Well.... if their gigabit connection was in my area, I'd probably be a little happier, but I've got a 50/20 connection from them, and a static IP address, for a somewhat reasonable price ($70/month)
Every artist and label under the sun posts all sorts of their content to YouTube. They then complain that people are listening to their music for free on YouTube? Then stop putting it there!
Create your own service where you can charge users every time they consume your content then. Yes, there are average Joes and Janes that post videos with their content as well, but when they're putting their content on YouTube as well, they really don't get to complain. Soon as they stop posting their stuff to YouTube, then they can complain and go after the average person posting with their content.
About 6 months back, I built a new gaming rig. I bought two GeForce 1080 cards to run in SLI on it. Each card came with a code for a free copy of Gears of War 4, which was cool. I wouldn't have paid for the game, but for free? Yeah, I'll play it! Only thing is, what would I do with two copies of the game? I only need one. What did I do with the second one? I gave it to a friend. It certainly wouldn't have done me any good.
Not sure if there's sarcasm in there or not - sarcasm meter still waiting on it's coffee fill - but Sling allows time shifting on a per-channel basis. Basically, it's up to the channel to say whether or not they allow time shifting. If they allow it, then it's on them. But they're getting paid regardless, since Sling isn't free.
I do thoroughly enjoy my Tivo though. Once press of a button will skip over every commercial in that commercial break, so long as the entire show has been recorded before I start watching it.
Give the recording industry exactly what they want. Remove any and all music and recordings associated with them from all Google services. Watch as they come crawling back begging to play nicely.
I used to use Gmail many moons ago, but ran into some fairly major problems with my account that Google couldn't be bothered to look into. So, for the last 8 years, I've ran my own email server out of my house.
It's a CentOS box running Scalix for the email stuff. It's got a web interface for email, you can install a plugin client side to make it so you can connect to it with Outlook if you so desire, or just use IMAP or POP. It's pretty easy to connect to with your phone's email client without having to pay for the premium active sync stuff. It's free up to 5 premium users (can use Outlook) and open source. If you want more premium users, then you pay for it. But for a home email server, 5 premium users is more than enough.
Only costs me $5/month for the static IP from my ISP to run, plus any time it takes when there are issues, which have been vanishingly rare, and the recycled hardware that it runs on from upgrading my main rig. Well worth it to me.
Give them a little time - assuming the phone has actually been cracked - and they'll come out and say that they found all kinds of terrorism-related material on the phone. Then they'll start telling us that this is why we shouldn't be able to have encryption or privacy and restart the fight to get laws passed banning it, because terrorism and for the children.
My ISP doesn't offer this "feature" of public hotspots. If I ever ended up with one that did, I would do exactly what I do now - disable all wireless on their equipment and use my own AP.
I don't want people that I don't know sitting on my front lawn so they can use the public side of my wifi. But if that were ever the case, at least I could yell at them to get off my lawn!
I guarantee that TWC will do anything and everything in their power to stop this, slow down the implementation process, or just make their lives as difficult as possible. Right on down to standing on the steps of city hall holding their breath.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for what these people are doing. I just can't see TWC letting this go without a fight, or at least a temper tantrum.
After Hacking Team got hacked and all of the exploits that they used became known and got patched, they just needed a new source for their "malware, ransomware, information, ideas, and tools to facilitate unlawful intrusions on others’ computers and electronic devices."
When you can simply take what you want, you can't beat the price.
Some people are saying that they're only doing this to boost sales of their overpriced ride photos, but that's not the case. I was there last summer and brought a GoPro with me. I had it [securely] strapped on for every non-dark ride that we went on in plain view of the ride operators and not a single one of them said a word to me about it. That got me on-ride video of practically every ride that we went on, and they didn't care in the least. Most theme parks won't let you take a GoPro on the rides no matter how securely it's attached to you, period - including Universal Orlando, which is just a few miles away from Disney.
Granted, we also bought their photo package last year, which cost $149 at the time and got us digital copies of every photo that was taken on rides and by the park photographers for the entire time we were there. Compared to the astronomical prices you'd pay for an individual photo, that works out to be a really good deal. Obviously, the ride operators had no way of telling that I had purchased that package, so that wouldn't have been why they let the GoPro slide.
Personally, I'm glad they're banning selfie sticks. They tried to accommodate them by only prohibiting them on the rides at first, but people chose to be idiots, so now they're not allowed at all. It's definitely a safety issue. I've never used a selfie stick, so I don't know how securely the mechanism is that holds onto the phone, but when you're talking forces exerted on a roller coaster, would that prevent the phone from flying off? I don't know for sure, but there's a good chance it won't. Now you've got a projectile flying at non-trivial speeds. They tried, and people proved that stupidity will prevail, so now they're not allowed at all. Good riddance.
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Cut the cord 3 years ago, and have never been happier. Had Sling TV for a while, that was alright. YouTube TV came available in my area, tried that out and liked it a little better than Sling and switched to that.
I get my internet from the local phone company, who has no skin in the content provider arena, and I couldn't be happier. Well.... if their gigabit connection was in my area, I'd probably be a little happier, but I've got a 50/20 connection from them, and a static IP address, for a somewhat reasonable price ($70/month)
You can still purchase Lightroom 6 as a perpetual license.
Every artist and label under the sun posts all sorts of their content to YouTube. They then complain that people are listening to their music for free on YouTube? Then stop putting it there!
Create your own service where you can charge users every time they consume your content then. Yes, there are average Joes and Janes that post videos with their content as well, but when they're putting their content on YouTube as well, they really don't get to complain. Soon as they stop posting their stuff to YouTube, then they can complain and go after the average person posting with their content.
About 6 months back, I built a new gaming rig. I bought two GeForce 1080 cards to run in SLI on it. Each card came with a code for a free copy of Gears of War 4, which was cool. I wouldn't have paid for the game, but for free? Yeah, I'll play it! Only thing is, what would I do with two copies of the game? I only need one. What did I do with the second one? I gave it to a friend. It certainly wouldn't have done me any good.
Not sure if there's sarcasm in there or not - sarcasm meter still waiting on it's coffee fill - but Sling allows time shifting on a per-channel basis. Basically, it's up to the channel to say whether or not they allow time shifting. If they allow it, then it's on them. But they're getting paid regardless, since Sling isn't free.
I do thoroughly enjoy my Tivo though. Once press of a button will skip over every commercial in that commercial break, so long as the entire show has been recorded before I start watching it.
Give the recording industry exactly what they want. Remove any and all music and recordings associated with them from all Google services. Watch as they come crawling back begging to play nicely.
They'll all have a glass back? So now they can charge you $300 per side to replace the glass when you drop it? Sounds pretty awesome to me!
It's a 50/5 vDSL connection. Total bill is $65/month with the static.
I used to use Gmail many moons ago, but ran into some fairly major problems with my account that Google couldn't be bothered to look into. So, for the last 8 years, I've ran my own email server out of my house.
It's a CentOS box running Scalix for the email stuff. It's got a web interface for email, you can install a plugin client side to make it so you can connect to it with Outlook if you so desire, or just use IMAP or POP. It's pretty easy to connect to with your phone's email client without having to pay for the premium active sync stuff. It's free up to 5 premium users (can use Outlook) and open source. If you want more premium users, then you pay for it. But for a home email server, 5 premium users is more than enough.
Only costs me $5/month for the static IP from my ISP to run, plus any time it takes when there are issues, which have been vanishingly rare, and the recycled hardware that it runs on from upgrading my main rig. Well worth it to me.
Give them a little time - assuming the phone has actually been cracked - and they'll come out and say that they found all kinds of terrorism-related material on the phone. Then they'll start telling us that this is why we shouldn't be able to have encryption or privacy and restart the fight to get laws passed banning it, because terrorism and for the children.
I'm willing to bet it's the same people who always seem to hit Reply All instead of just Reply.
My ISP doesn't offer this "feature" of public hotspots. If I ever ended up with one that did, I would do exactly what I do now - disable all wireless on their equipment and use my own AP.
I don't want people that I don't know sitting on my front lawn so they can use the public side of my wifi. But if that were ever the case, at least I could yell at them to get off my lawn!
I guarantee that TWC will do anything and everything in their power to stop this, slow down the implementation process, or just make their lives as difficult as possible. Right on down to standing on the steps of city hall holding their breath.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for what these people are doing. I just can't see TWC letting this go without a fight, or at least a temper tantrum.
They also seem to be the puppets of the MAFIAA when it comes to enforcing copyright.
After Hacking Team got hacked and all of the exploits that they used became known and got patched, they just needed a new source for their "malware, ransomware, information, ideas, and tools to facilitate unlawful intrusions on others’ computers and electronic devices."
When you can simply take what you want, you can't beat the price.
Some people are saying that they're only doing this to boost sales of their overpriced ride photos, but that's not the case. I was there last summer and brought a GoPro with me. I had it [securely] strapped on for every non-dark ride that we went on in plain view of the ride operators and not a single one of them said a word to me about it. That got me on-ride video of practically every ride that we went on, and they didn't care in the least. Most theme parks won't let you take a GoPro on the rides no matter how securely it's attached to you, period - including Universal Orlando, which is just a few miles away from Disney. Granted, we also bought their photo package last year, which cost $149 at the time and got us digital copies of every photo that was taken on rides and by the park photographers for the entire time we were there. Compared to the astronomical prices you'd pay for an individual photo, that works out to be a really good deal. Obviously, the ride operators had no way of telling that I had purchased that package, so that wouldn't have been why they let the GoPro slide. Personally, I'm glad they're banning selfie sticks. They tried to accommodate them by only prohibiting them on the rides at first, but people chose to be idiots, so now they're not allowed at all. It's definitely a safety issue. I've never used a selfie stick, so I don't know how securely the mechanism is that holds onto the phone, but when you're talking forces exerted on a roller coaster, would that prevent the phone from flying off? I don't know for sure, but there's a good chance it won't. Now you've got a projectile flying at non-trivial speeds. They tried, and people proved that stupidity will prevail, so now they're not allowed at all. Good riddance.