Cord cutting - Sling TV

[Anti-Polar Bear]

When I told Spectrum I was ending my TV service, the salesman kept arguing with me about my decision.
He wanted to know why?, why?, why? and "cost" was not good enough. It was absolutely strange, I lost my temper several times and told him to just accept my decision. Yet he pressed on. At last, I started laughing and said I admired his ability to function in such a demeaning job. His response: "We try to help people, make sure they are getting the best services. Are you sure...."

Lol. Capitalism is awful.

[3irty1]

We never got the promised flying cars and jet packs, but in 2018 we are indeed entering couch potato heaven. My actual internet service jumped from about 10 MBPS to 200 MBPS. Streaming quality is great both technically and in terms of content.

BTW, ESPN is offering a new streaming service for $5 per month. https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/what-is-espn-plus/

I can't figure out if this sucks, but I lean towards yes. They are putting content there that is not on ESPN3 streaming, which people are already paying for with their main bundling subscriptions. ESPN+ for now is carrying minor sports and relatively obscure stuff. But I actually might have to pay for it to feed my wrestling fetish. It just one more new expense.

A la carte ESPN is an expensive redundancy for you now, but this is obviously where we want all TV to go right? Even whole networks a la carte is a bit too blunt of an instrument when it comes to a value-for-value transfer. The best version of this is probably lots of pay-per-view. The behavior of channel flipping is another vestige of broadcast.

[3irty1]

Lol. Capitalism is awful.

On the one hand its hard to find fault with an economic system based on voluntary transactions. On the other hand, adding violence to something does add a lot of excitement so I see your point.

[3irty1]

When I told Spectrum I was ending my TV service, the salesman kept arguing with me about my decision.
He wanted to know why?, why?, why? and "cost" was not good enough. It was absolutely strange, I lost my temper several times and told him to just accept my decision. Yet he pressed on. At last, I started laughing and said I admired his ability to function in such a demeaning job. His response: "We try to help people, make sure they are getting the best services. Are you sure...."

I get a kick out of the fact that when you call to cancel they say "Ok, let me transfer you to our retention department." As if this isn't the exact opposite of what you asked for.

I've only had TV service once before here's how I got it. Spectrum reps frequently tried to push me into bundling TV with my internet every time I found myself on the phone with them. At some point I just started lying and saying we don't have a TV. They usually ask why not?, and I usually make up a not-believable rant about how this family only reads books or how I'm amish or something. You know, fight theater with theater. But one time I said the TV broke and we can't afford a new one right now. She put me on hold, came back 5 minutes later and said she could offer me $400 in prepaid Visa cards to buy a TV if I would commit to a TV bundle. So then I had TV for a little while.

[mraynrand]

lol

[Harlan Huckleby]

make up a not-believable rant about how this family only reads books or how I'm amish or something. You know, fight theater with theater. But one time I said the TV broke and we can't afford a new one right now. She put me on hold, came back 5 minutes later and said she could offer me $400 in prepaid Visa cards to buy a TV if I would commit to a TV bundle. So then I had TV for a little while.

When you think about it, all the digital service providers are dealing almost exclusively with fixed costs. When you drop the service, that lost revenue comes right out of their profits. If they can keep you by offering half price (without their full price customers knowing it) it makes perfect sense for them to do it.

Your $400 TV swag is impressive. I wonder what would have happened if you asked for a "date" instead. Wouldn't rule it out.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

On the one hand its hard to find fault with an economic system based on voluntary transactions. On the other hand, adding violence to something does add a lot of excitement so I see your point.

Capitalist forced exploited worker to demean himself to customer. Had customer asked for a "date" with worker at the local motel in exchange for the continuation of subscription, capitalist would be like, "Don't forget to clock out; can't be paying you the minimum-wage to do the monkey business - that's prostitution." A tenet of capitalism is competition. Competition breeds violence. Don't give me the bullshits about competition breeding innovation. Cooperation also breeds innovation...without violence.

Damn right, capitalism is awful. Capitalism is an abomination.

[mraynrand]

Capitalist forced exploited worker to demean himself to customer. Had customer asked for a "date" with worker at the local motel in exchange for the continuation of subscription, capitalist would be like, "Don't forget to clock out; can't be paying you the minimum-wage to do the monkey business - that's prostitution." A tenet of capitalism is competition. Competition breeds violence. Don't give me the bullshits about competition breeding innovation. Cooperation also breeds innovation...without violence.

Damn right, capitalism is awful. Capitalism is an abomination.

Shallow. Life in it's distilled Darwinian essence is a struggle for survival that pits competition against cooperation. They are inevitably connected and eternally in conflict. Surely anyone who follows football would recognize this.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Shallow. Life in it's distilled Darwinian essence is a struggle for survival that pits competition against cooperation. They are inevitably connected and eternally in conflict. Surely anyone who follows football would recognize this.

For species that cannot control and alter their environments, your statement might be relevant. For humans, not so much. Homo sapiens now rule the earth. Human competition is notorious for fucking up the planet and the people on it. Widespread human cooperation is certainly attainable. What's better, a greed-fucked, competitive system that benefits only a few wankers, or the peaceful, cooperative system in which everyone benefits?

[mraynrand]

You may be mistaken. Locusts alter their environment and Humans have less power to change our environment than people believe. Also, according to Darwinian theory, humans are just another animal. The difference between humans and termites is only in sophistication of their dwellings.

You sound like a speciesist to me.

[Zool]

See? If not for the Discover Channel, Rand knows way less about locusts.

[mraynrand]

See? If not for the Discover Channel, Rand knows way less about locusts.

No no, the locust info is from Exodus, the termite stuff from Discovery Channel. Especially those termites in S. America that signal with green light. That's crazy stuff.

[Harlan Huckleby]

A la carte ESPN is an expensive redundancy for you now, but this is obviously where we want all TV to go right? Even whole networks a la carte is a bit too blunt of an instrument when it comes to a value-for-value transfer.

Well, I'd buy this argument if ESPN was segmenting their service in some reasonable way. Say, you buy the sports you are interested in. But now ESPN has just spread my niche interest (men in tights wrasslin) across multiple subscriptions to try and squeeze some marginal dollars out of me.

An ala carte menu that says you can order the steak with broccoli or the pizza with fricassee is not my idea of ala carte.

[3irty1]

Capitalist forced exploited worker to demean himself to customer.

Worker is there by choice, and employer is employing them by choice. It's a voluntary relationship--this is already not exploitation in any sense of the word that would convey unfairness.

A tenet of capitalism is competition. Competition breeds violence. Don't give me the bullshits about competition breeding innovation. Cooperation also breeds innovation...without violence.

Do you not cooperate with the other employees at your job? Your description of reality has the resolution of a finger painting. When pressed on any detail of the utopia in your head, even that fantasy has people behaving the way you want under threat of force. Does that sound like cooperation to you? The only pedestal to preach this from is a pile of 150 million corpses.

[3irty1]

Well, I'd buy this argument if ESPN was segmenting their service in some reasonable way. Say, you buy the sports you are interested in. But now ESPN has just spread my niche interest (men in tights wrasslin) across multiple subscriptions to try and squeeze some marginal dollars out of me.

An ala carte menu that says you can order the steak with broccoli or the pizza with fricassee is not my idea of ala carte.

That's not my idea of ala carte either. I thought what you were describing was an ESPN streaming service that had everything a bundled ESPN channel would have plus more stuff like wrestling. Meaning if you had no bundle, you'd have all the ESPN without any redundancy. Similar to how HBO streaming subscription works. Is this not what they are selling?