Not a ton of shocking stuff going on here, but a few things in no particular order:
- South Dakota’s most popular streaming service being a version of HBO that I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist anymore is perfect. I picture the Dakotas being about 30 years behind everything else. Like how Laverne and Shirley is still in first-run in Kazakhstan.
- What in God’s name is going on in West Virginia? AOL+? What is that?? Are they putting AOL discs in their computer and watching TV that way? A/S/L.
- I’ve never heard of The Pirate Bay but it sounds like something from the dark web.
- Also never heard of Kanopy or Shudder but I am very much looking forward to having to pay $4.95 a month in the future to get them so I can watch the one exclusive show they have that I want to see.
And that last point brings me to a larger point: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss cable. I remember in 2015 when streaming services first started I was paying about $215 a month for internet and TV from Spectrum. And at that time I was so tired of seeing my rates randomly go up $3-$5 a month for no reason that I ‘cut the cord.’ I only paid for internet ($75) and signed up for the first version of Sling TV ($20). It had all of the channels I cared about AND it had FSN Wisconsin (RIP) for Brewer and Bucks games. It was BEAUTIFUL. We already had Netflix but that was only about $8 a month at the time. For about 18 months that’s all we had, we paid about $100 a month, saving more than half of what we were previously spending, it was glorious.
Now if I’m honest, we knew at the time that that wasn’t going to last. At some point cable companies/entertainment companies would figure out a way to get their money, and that’s where we’re at currently. Sling ditched FSN so we had to ditch Sling and sign up for Hulu Live for $45 a month. That was the first Jurassic Park tremor in the water. And slowly but surely it got worse and worse and worse. We needed Hulu for certain shows, Netflix for certain shows, then HBO got their own app and we needed that for certain shows, we got Peacock (The Cock) to get access to Olympic coverage, then I needed Youtube TV to be able to watch Bucks playoff games on TNT and ESPN, it’s a literal sh!tshow.
At this point I’m getting nickeled and dimed to the point that I’m paying as much as I did for cable, and the WORST part is that all of this entertainment isn’t all in one place. You’ve got to open Netflix to watch Stranger Things, then we need to close that and open Peacock to watch The Office, then I need to close that and open Bally Sports to watch the Brewers, then I need to close that and open HBO Max* to watch Succession, and on and on it goes. At least when I was paying $200 for cable all I had to turn was turn on one thing and hit ‘guide’ and it was all there. Somehow this venture became more expensive and less convenient. Fun!
Anyway, file this under First World Problems for sure, but it is agitating. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cloud to yell at.
*All of these apps have their quirks, but HBO Max is by far the worst in terms of lag time. Trying to fast forward an episode of TV just about causes a new black hole to develop in a distant galaxy. Maybe that new telescope can get to the bottom of it.
PS: I honest to God tried calling Spectrum a month ago to see if I could get the old rig again: Cable box, remote, massive bill that always goes up, the whole deal. But they don’t even offer that anymore. If you sign up for TV, they just want to you download their app. ANOTHER APP!
