Thread

1. ghaff · 1790267264 · focus · HN ↗

   I still pay less than when I had a cable bundle with the caveat that, then, I didn't have premium channels and, now, don't have live TV. In my personal book, I'm still ahead in the game.

   1. dylan604 · 1790267651 · focus · HN ↗

      You can have live TV with a cheap antenna with a better image quality than any streaming platform.

      1. ghaff · 1790268044 · focus · HN ↗

         I can not pick up anything with an antenna, cheap or otherwise.

         I'm at the foot of of a hill that's between me and where broadcast antennas are 40-50 miles away. I had no TV when I moved in until Comcast eventually put in cable. The seller had even tried putting an antenna up in the attic which did no good. So I would need to subscribe to a live TV streaming service which isn't worth it for me as I don't really watch sports much.

         But I'm glad you're so confident of your knowledge of my situation.

         1. dylan604 · 1790272402 · focus · HN ↗

            You're the reason cable was invented in the first place

            1. ghaff · 1790272883 · focus · HN ↗

               Along with more channels; many cable adopters got perfectly good OTA signals. And I used it for many years. It just became not a good value for me at one point.

               1. dylan604 · 1790279130 · focus · HN ↗

                  No, cable was specifically created to deliver broadcast to those that could not receive it[0]. Those many more channels came some time later

                  [0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cable_television_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cable_television_in_the_United...

                  1. ghaff · 1790311253 · focus · HN ↗

                     Very early on. The real growth of cable aligned with the growth of stations like MTV, CNN, WTBS, etc.

                     1. dylan604 · 1790543618 · focus · HN ↗

                        even though this is very late, cable was developed in late 40s&#x2F;early 50s. Those stations did not come until the 80s. So 30 years qualifies very early on I guess, but sounds more revisionist time to me.

                        1. ghaff · 1790610882 · focus · HN ↗

                           6-12 ft. C-band satellite antennas that piggybacked on unencrypted programming traffic certainly existed. My neighbor had one and I did some research but decided it wasn&#x27;t worth the effort &#x2F;money when I moved in. Whatever broadband cable company did eventually wire me up a few years later; this was in the late 90s. And I&#x27;m about 40 miles west of Boston.

                           Maybe revisionist but what most people think of as &quot;cable&quot; was broadband cable (maybe DirecTV, launched 1994) with lots of commercial channels. They don&#x27;t think of having a 12 foot antenna scouring the sky for signals.

                           There was certainly some earlier cable, e.g. HBO, if you could pickup broadcast, that predated channels like CNN.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.