It’s about time. The cable companies were originally the savior to a world of rabbit ears and four or five channels. But since then they have grown into telecom behemoths leeching money from the American consumer and providing little or no innovation for the over priced service they offer.
I mean think about it, oh sure you can get high speed broadband from them, and some semblance of land line phone service. but what else have they done for you?
They are willing to rent you an awful DVR service for $100 a year. And why is that awful, because the cable and satellite companies bought out all the competing brands to TiVo and killed the market.
Where is our a la cart cable? Oh sure they are more than willing to cap or tier your “unlimited” internet service but when there is clear demand for pay for what you use TV, they sell us packages including hundreds of channels we don’t want or use.
All this and prices are going up, bigger cable co’s are swallowing little ones creating less demand in a market already controlled by regional monopolies.
The American TV consumer is tied to the tracks shouting for help in a silent movie, but where is our hero?
Well what if Apple was that hero? Rumors have been swirling for a while now about Apple proposing deals to the major networks not for their overpriced download and rental options they already offer in the iTunes store, but for a streaming subscription service.
What if for $30 a month you could have “The best of TV” anytime you wanted, commercial free, from Apple. I know that’s something I would be very interested in.
You would still need some form of Broadband service, probably with a decent download rate for HD content, so figure about $50 a month there. $30 from Apple for TV Service. Over the air for local/live events such as sports. $10 a month for netflix streaming and you’d have all you need to replace what Time Warner is offering me, plus the equivalent of some premium content I’m not paying for now, for $90 a month.
Oh Sure $90 a month is not cheap, but considering that Time Warner is soaking me for $150 a month now, a cool $720 bucks back in my pocket is not a bad thing.
The only question becomes how will the cable companies react to this? Will they continue to try and throttle and cap the internet content to try and keep us from using the internet as an viable streaming TV option? Or will they shake up their own business model and offer their own cheaper options such as a la cart cable for a reasonable fee.
I know change is scary, especially when you have been riding the gravy train for twenty years with no competition, but seriously Time Warner. I’m about to leave, but I’d stay with you if I could pick and choose my channels and get a $60 a month savings.
It’s your call. If it’s not Apple today it’s google or netflix tomorrow. It’s time to adapt or perish.
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