Admit it, cable television is becoming obsolete faster than using pigeons as effective mail carriers. It’s expensive, has too many commercials and just isn’t convenient for anyone (I’m referring to cable, not the pigeons).
How much does cable cost you? Probably too much, and do you feel happy? I have found that paying for cable is useless. There are so many other cheaper and better alternatives to cable. I have subscribed to just about every television-streaming service there is — Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, ESPN Go, you name it — and it is still cheaper per month than my cable package was. I can now watch “Game of Thrones” and then switch over to Netflix and finish binge-watching “House of Cards” before moving over to my next series, and it is wonderful. With cable I had to set a schedule around when I could watch my favorite television shows, and if I couldn’t I would just set up my TiVo and it was all good, until the dreaded “Memory Storage Full” message popped up and consequently popped my happy television-viewing bubble. Even without cable, I can watch those shows whenever I want. It is now more than ever that cable television has a way to actually die off, especially with some streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix that are putting out their own shows like the critically-acclaimed “House of Cards” (which if you haven’t watched, you should). The principle of “the grass is greener” will kick in and the people that have cable will switch over because they want to watch those shows that are not readily available to them on cable.
But there is one thing that threatens not only video streaming, but the Internet as a whole — the destruction of net-neutrality. The Internet is abuzz trying to inform the public, and it should not be overlooked when discussing anything Internet related, since this affects just about everybody. Without net-neutrality, the Internet would become more like cable, where it is only better if you’re willing to pay more money to your Internet service providers. However, people have caught on to the bills that Congress has been trying to pass and are currently fighting against them so as to keep net neutrality, with the culmination resulting in an “Internet slowdown day,” where sites, like Netflix and YouTube showed they wanted to keep net neutrality.
In the end the question I am really trying to ask is where do you think cable will be in the coming years? Will cable be dead or alive and well? And if it is dead, what will we use to watch all of our favorite shows? Will Netflix even still be around? I wouldn’t be surprised if we one day get TV streamed straight to our brains.
