“Last week I came to the realization that with Netflix and iTunes, I would be able to cut out the $50 portion of my cable TV bill and ditch the 80 or so channels I never watch, including 3 shopping channels, 3 sports channels, 6 family channels, numerous foreign language channels, and one Lifetime Channel for Women that my fiance tortures me with. Farewell Melissa Gilbert, Rachael Ray, and Paula Deen! You are thus banished from my home,” Alan Graham blogs for ZDNet.
Graham writes, “I’m currently interested in about 6 shows, all of which it turns out I can get on iTunes. Plus, Netflix handles all of my movie needs. If I’m generous with my iTunes figures, it adds up to about $300 in purchases each year, versus the $600 I pay for all of the ‘variety’ that Comcast provides me. The old model of just piping junk into my home simply doesn’t make sense to me anymore.”
Graham writes, “I called Comcast and asked to disconnect the cable television part of my bill and just keep my high speed internet. They were very nice and said, no problem. They would be happy to do that.”
“Oh yeah…btw…we also have to cut your 6Mbps connection down to 3Mbps, and we’re gonna have to charge you more money for it. Or, we can offer you basic cable and you get to keep your high speed connection for just $64.”
Graham writes, “So wait, you are giving me the choice of charging me more money for less features, or charging me more money and giving me less value? I guess I’ll take what I don’t want…to keep what I do want. Thank goodness for deregulation!”
Graham writes, “Of course as long as companies like Comcast own the pipes, don’t expect any of this to change. But this experience got me thinking about Net Neutrality. What I wonder is, as services like iTunes, Joost, Netflix, and others begin to make greater inroads into the Comcast cash cow, and as the telecoms begin to provide cable tv options as well, will they be choking off the value of competing services by slowing down the pipes?”
Graham writes, “This seems like an anti-competitive tactic and is something we need to start looking closely at now. iTunes may be a juggernaut at the moment, but they can’t compete with Comcast and other cable/telecom companies, if they start choking off the connection. And that’s not just bad for Apple, Google, or Yahoo!, it hurts every other company out there, especially the smaller ones.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BB” for the heads up.]
Tour of Apple’s new Apple TV (3:58):
Related articles:
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