The service is shut off as of 2:00 am this morning. This may come as a shock to many people, maybe? My bill was $59.97/month with Dish Network.. not a tough pill to swallow at all. The thing that was bothering me was, am I really getting the worth of those (near) $60 every month, or any month? I don't think so. I paid for the service in my home as a courtesy for my family but even as a family of six, we are not getting the value out of it.
Let's break this down, $60/month covered HD channels, 200 channels, local channels, my DVR service and a protection plan. Another option for watching television (if you want new episodes) is using your Playstation 3, XBox, Hulu Plus, Roku, Apple TV and countless other websites and services that deliver next-day programming in high definition for $2/episode. If each episode is worth $2, that is about 30 hours of television per month that would be watched for $60, there is no way my family is watching that much television. For me, I watch maybe 2 hours of television of week. My siblings record and watch shows and my parents watch a couple of hours per week.
Were we getting our money's worth? Absolutely not. I would go out on a limb and say most people don't.. it's just a luxury that people want to have so that they may watch something when they have idle time. These satellite and cable companies run a terrible business. Dish Network would sporadically cut channels and add on new channels. Do I want or a need a new channel to video games? Nope. There are hundreds of available channels, many that don't even have new programming.
Why pay for a service that stiffs me with commercials, unreliable channel lineups and makes me rent things unnecessarily (in Europe and parts of Asia, they have televisions with built-in DVR's but that technology isn't being released in North America, I wonder why...)
Internet television is the way of the present and it's the way of the future. From April-June 2011, 195,000 people people dropped their satellite or cable providers setting a record; and the number is increasing. I don't mind paying per episode for a series, in fact, it's a much better feeling. The television episodes or movies are placed into a server, if I use a Roku box to view something, then it's a much more straight-forward process than satellite or cable companies which have more middle-men to go through. I feel better knowing that my money isn't going to middlemen/women.
Let's be trend-setters, or let's get with the times! Everything is web-based nowadays, let's push our television viewing in that direction as well. In the era of smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, high speed internet and other devices, there is little reason to sit in front of a television that is connected via a satellite dish and requires us to sit through commercials, or even hit the skip button on our DVR remotes to get through commercial breaks. Hopefully, these television providers will catch on.
It's not easy to quit. The first thing to accept is that you will most likely have to wait an extra day to watch something (Egad, one extra day!). Over-the-air programming is still readily available for local news and what not. Everything else you can find on the web for free (CNN.com and such). I hope that in ten years, satellite dishes and cables will be as useful and used as dial-up internet is now.
Let's break this down, $60/month covered HD channels, 200 channels, local channels, my DVR service and a protection plan. Another option for watching television (if you want new episodes) is using your Playstation 3, XBox, Hulu Plus, Roku, Apple TV and countless other websites and services that deliver next-day programming in high definition for $2/episode. If each episode is worth $2, that is about 30 hours of television per month that would be watched for $60, there is no way my family is watching that much television. For me, I watch maybe 2 hours of television of week. My siblings record and watch shows and my parents watch a couple of hours per week.
Were we getting our money's worth? Absolutely not. I would go out on a limb and say most people don't.. it's just a luxury that people want to have so that they may watch something when they have idle time. These satellite and cable companies run a terrible business. Dish Network would sporadically cut channels and add on new channels. Do I want or a need a new channel to video games? Nope. There are hundreds of available channels, many that don't even have new programming.
Why pay for a service that stiffs me with commercials, unreliable channel lineups and makes me rent things unnecessarily (in Europe and parts of Asia, they have televisions with built-in DVR's but that technology isn't being released in North America, I wonder why...)
Internet television is the way of the present and it's the way of the future. From April-June 2011, 195,000 people people dropped their satellite or cable providers setting a record; and the number is increasing. I don't mind paying per episode for a series, in fact, it's a much better feeling. The television episodes or movies are placed into a server, if I use a Roku box to view something, then it's a much more straight-forward process than satellite or cable companies which have more middle-men to go through. I feel better knowing that my money isn't going to middlemen/women.
Let's be trend-setters, or let's get with the times! Everything is web-based nowadays, let's push our television viewing in that direction as well. In the era of smartphones, tablets, smart televisions, high speed internet and other devices, there is little reason to sit in front of a television that is connected via a satellite dish and requires us to sit through commercials, or even hit the skip button on our DVR remotes to get through commercial breaks. Hopefully, these television providers will catch on.
It's not easy to quit. The first thing to accept is that you will most likely have to wait an extra day to watch something (Egad, one extra day!). Over-the-air programming is still readily available for local news and what not. Everything else you can find on the web for free (CNN.com and such). I hope that in ten years, satellite dishes and cables will be as useful and used as dial-up internet is now.
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