I'm paying $36 for Hulu (2 streams), Netflix (4 streams) and Amazon (2 streams). There are about 100,000 hours worth on Netflix alone, and probably another 100,000 hours or so on the other two, so at any given day I have way, WAY more content to choose from than 200+ cable channels could air on that same day.

With cable TV charging $10 for every STB and then another $10 for the privilege to record, without even having selected a channel package a household with 2 TV's is down $30 just on equipment and record privileges. In recent years there have been some advancements such as apps for Roku and other streaming players instead of a STB, but the apps are often bad in quality compared to the OTT provider apps, and only work if you have their internet.

Cable still forces bundled sports, and many people don't want to pay for sports. ESPN alone goes for $8 a month, which means if you don't watch that channel.... you are literally throwing out $8 every month. OTT providers do also have sports channels, but you have a much better choice in finding a package that has none, or very few sports channels.

Meanwhile, over in Europe they developed the DVB-C standard, which is lightyears ahead of CableCard, and supports all the on-demand and 2-way features. It's cheap to implement, so it is built in many TV's for the EU market so customers there don't even have to have a separate box. They can buy their own DVR, and they get to keep their recordings if they ever leave cable. Cable is also much much cheaper, but they don't have the massive amounts of channels we have here either.

All these restrictions have perfectly good explanations - such as contracts forced upon them by content and channel owners, and absolutely no regulation from the government that says they can't do that - but it does put US cable providers in a much tighter spot than elsewhere in the world.

With Disney+ being launched, CBS All Access a financial success, Warner coming up with their HBOPlus, and everyone expecting a move by NBC...... people now have "a-la-carte" choices as to what they want to pay for, and what not.

If cable wants to survive they HAVE to find ways to:

- Allow people to buy their own equipment (and keep their recordings), which probably means developing a better standard than CableCard.
- Allow people to choose much smaller bundles of channels, and eliminate sports-dedicated channels from their selection.
- Allow people to use their streaming apps on other internet providers.
- Lobby the FCC to do away with certain rules, such as having to carry the broadcast networks in any cable package. I already get all the locals for free, if I wanted cable i just want a few news channels and such....

If they want to actually COMPETE again, they will have to offer DVR (and thus, first tuner) for free. OTT providers typically have 3 streams included, and charge extra for another stream OR you would have to pay for 2 accounts.... if cable wants to actually compete with that, stop charging for the first STB and DVR and offer them for free. (Or hey, weird idea, have a standard that is cheap to implement and allow people to buy their own...)

If cable doesn't adjust to the modern times, and it doesn't seem likely that they will.... or can due to contracts they shouldn't have signed.... this free fall of subscriber losses is just going to get worse.

And I'm sure many pay TV executives STILL have their heads in the sand about this, denying that it's happening.