not me 2
@comcast.net
| reply to Matt
Re: Past statistics don't always show future trends
Whether most people would choose to watch TV online is hard to say. It hasn't happened so far and even if everything was available in HD I don't know that would make many more people switch to watching online instead of on their TV. Online viewing is nice for short clips like Youtube carries, but most people will want to watch on their larger TV screen than their laptop or desktop computer has. (Yes, you can connect a PC to the TV but most people don't do that and aren't likely to do it in the near future.) People are creatures of habit and watching shows/movies on the TV is what they are used to and most aren't going to change that viewing habit, especially not if they have more than one viewing at a time.
In either case it probably doesn't matter because monthly usage caps are here and they aren't likely to go away. The caps will keep people from switching to watching large amounts of HD video online even if the cap would allow someone to do so. That's just because most people don't want to risk going over the cap so they will turn to other sources (watch live or recorded TV) instead of watching online. |
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Lazlow
join:2006-08-07
Saint Louis, MO
| not me 2
I think you are VASTLY underestimating the general public. PVRs are very popular, mythtv(among others) is a fairly common thing to see in people under 30 households. Since the computer is already hooked to the TV it usually does not take very long for these people to figure out that they can get media online. It may start out as just finding episodes that were missed for one reason or another, but it soon spreads. If you like one show from a pay channel (say Dexter). If you like a series from overseas (say Kingdom). After a while people soon start to ask themselves why they are paying $60+ for cable when they can get the same media online. While this has been climbing slowly over the last decade(I had my first pvr in 93) it has hit a huge growth spurt since DVRs have become popular (people do not like paying that monthly fee, just like when they got rid of cable boxes the first time). |
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