My computer just made me watch this ad while I was waiting for something.

And all I could think was, “Wow, cable is really getting desperate.”

Streaming is so complicated, it’s… evil?

OK, so, if you’re very technology-averse, I suppose it’s a little complicated. But the complexity is wonderful. With cable, you watch what is “on” now. And in my experience, there is pretty much never anything “on” at a given moment that I have any interest in seeing. I don’t mind a bit of clicking around through various services to find something that interests me. I find myself watching more TV than I did in cable days. Which is not necessarily good, but I do it because the new way is much more appealing. It has a lot more to offer.

And claiming that it’s too expensive? Really? Have you actually checked out the pricing? I’ve got Netflix, Prime, Britbox and Disney+, and the monthly total is, what — about a fourth of what most people pay for cable? Maybe I’m doing the math wrong, but I don’t think so. Of course, at the moment I’m getting the Disney free because of… I don’t know… something to do with my Verizon account.

Not that there’s not the potential for things to get too messy, or too expensive. Once, there was just Netflix, and it seemed they had everything — or at least, more than I had time to watch. But now we’re moving toward every content producer pulling out their stuff and making you sign up for yet another service. And that’s not good.

But it’s still way better than cable, right?

Related Posts

• Summing up the culture of 2021, in a headline
• Tempted for once by the grocery checkout rack
• Netflix is trying to guilt me into bingeing. Really…
• ETV needs to think really hard about its demographics
• Can I watch ‘Game of Thrones’ for free? (And should I?)
• A little Ragnar to balance out Adaline: That’s fair, right?
• You know nothing about how to contact Jon Snow
• The Golden Age of Television Overload
• The long-awaited collapse of the ‘bundle’
• Does ‘quality’ television really have to be so morally arid?