If we had a cable/ISP market system that actually had meaningful competition and regulation, cable companies would already be dead and replaced by IPTV.

I haven't had cable in years and probably never will again. I wonder how long the cable TV business will be able to stave off the end by continued payoffs to our elected officials.

The fact that the cable companies also are the high speed ISPs really bites hard and is strong evidence of how corrupt our lawmakers are. Will the cable companies really be able to drag this out by putting tight quotas on data transfers?

If COX tries to force me to pay more so I can watch Netflix and Hulu I am going to be SERIOUSLY pissed.

And there's 10 times more content plus additional features like DVR and HD.

Do you feel as if more websites are automatically playing videos when the page loads?

I have cable. I like it.

natmar_76: Cutting the cable was the best thing I ever did. I've actually done some meaningful things with my life, like finally learning the guitar.

Hahaha, playing the guitar is meaningful? I mean I love music and all, but learning the power chords necessary to play "Smoke on the Water" isn't meaningful.

I don't have cable. Hell, I don't own a TV. Instead of doing something healthy or meaningful with my time, I watch hours and hours of crap TV and movies at a minimal cost on my home computers. In fact, I only pay for an unlimited internet plan and netflix streaming and the rest of my entertainment I scrounge up for free.

My laptop is great to plop on a chair a few feet away and snuggle with the guy on the couch when we watch our "tv". No, I care not for Hi-def pixels or like totally awesome sound.

oukewldave: A Holes at Time Warner decided to raise my internet only bill by 14$ to 53.99 a month without telling me. Their excuse was that my introductory offer ended. That would make sense if I haven't had it for 2.5 years. They refused to lower it one penny even after threatening to cancel and switch to UVerse. Their response was "OK". Instead of getting 40$ from me every month they now get 0. I have UVerse coming tomorrow for internet and 200 tv channels for 13$ more. Who is this country is paying 55$ a month for only internet?! I don't know anyone.

Time Warner pulled the same thing with me. My introductory offer ended and my bill went from $90 to $120. I called them to get on another promo and they refused. So I switched to DirecTV and AT&T and am paying a little for $100 a month and I got a better DVR and more channels.

iollow: And the NFL can go fark itself too. No one watches your stupid Thursday night games unless it's their home team.

I do. I love having the NFL Network and the RedZone Channel. I'm not even like a crazy rabid sports fan, I just like watching them.

natmar_76: jaylectricity: Hahaha, playing the guitar is meaningful? I mean I love music and all, but learning the power chords necessary to play "Smoke on the Water" isn't meaningful.

Yes, playing an instrument is meaningful. It's a valuable experience, much more so than passively watching a television. Nice inference on the power chords, also. I read music and play classical pieces, as well as modern chord songs.

I was just bustin balls...I like making music too. And there's almost nothing better than trading instruments with your best friend and trying something different.

Ok, I just wrote that and did not even think of the sexual innuendos that could be construed.

I just meant, like:

Hey cool. I play drums. I can play a little bass but I would never brag about being able to play a song from memory. I have some piano skills that were reduced from actual music reading with clefs and everything to just making something sound techno-ey. I can play a few chords on the guitar, and probably half of them are power chords. I've played instruments that don't even have a name because it was just the result of us filling balloons with random numbers of stale cigarettes.

/dammit, I couldn't resist saying something silly at the end

geekbikerskum

If the sports networks are to blame for much of the rate hikes, then maybe the cable networks should consider making a "no sports" package available without ESPN and related stuff. I really don't care about football, NASCRAP, or pretty much anything else they broadcast.

THIS!!!!

Got cable and also got the sports package -- which is included in EVERY package with AT&T Uverse and COMCAST. I don't watch sports. If the sports business charges so much for carrying their stuff, why shove it on EVERY customer whether they want it or not?

I biatched to a COMCAST representative, as I terminated their service, about the TV being taken over by INFOMERCIALS and was surprised to find out that COMCAST had no control over them. The networks did.

I switched to AT&T U-Verse because it was a lot cheaper than Comcast, plus I had been using their high speed internet separately at low cost and no problem -- though I had to buy their $75 modem which is probably worth about $20. After it all got installed, I discovered that along with their cheap monthly rate came a bunch of hidden charges that jacked the total bill up beyond Comcast. PLUS they disconnected my cheap cable DSL and ran it through U-verse at a much higher charge.

I got to keep the modem.

Then I found out that not only was the service infested with infomercials, but they juggled programs about on different tiers so I wound up loosing a few.
It was a pretty much loose-loose situation. I'll be trying Direct TV next.

I read somewhere that TV networks charge cable and dish companies to carry their stuff, which surprised me a bit because, as far as I know, when cable first started, it was the other way around. Plus, in many areas, they've shut down the old free TV transmission towers, except for UHF. Back then, networks paid a fee to be carried on a stations broadcast lineup.

Cable companies also screwed themselves when someone came up with the idea of tiers and breaking up programming so that the cheapest tier stopped just short of making the viewer commit suicide. To watch anything halfway decent, you were forced to upgrade, which cost more. If you wanted to watch anything resembling good TV, you had to upgrade even again.

Naturally, at more money each time.

Plus, you wind up cluttered with useless channels. I don't want the mass of sports channels -- and don't understand why, with all of them mandatory, some of my favorite stations still pre-empt programming to show spots events. I don't want the infomercial channels, nor the exercise ones, the QVC types and certainly not the Hispanic ones.

Comcast Cable did not win any popularity contests when they managed to bribe Congress into making 'stealing cable' from a misdemeanor to a FELONEY. To disconnect your service, they used to clip the wire at your box on your house. Folks discovered real quick that you could poke the exposed cable end back into the socket and get basic cable for free. THAT was STEALING cable. Sometimes, you only had to bend the wire to within a quarter inch of the socket to get it.

Then they started cutting it at the pole, which also helped wipe out the easily accessible, much smaller cable boxes needed to convert the signal for your TV. You could get them -- naturally -- off the Internet.

Then Comcast developed new boxes through which they could send a signal to find out how many you had and if any were 'illegal'. Illegal ones were then cut off. It was rumored that they could send a signal down the line and burn out your illegal cable box.

Face it folks, no matter what you do, you're going to eventually pay through the nose for the use of any communication or entertainment device.

Like the cheap internet TV? Just wait.

Kind of like how now you have to put up with animated ads when you go to most web pages, which seem somehow to load a whole lot faster than anything else and recently developed a way to spread out across your screen as you scramble to find the close button. Not to mention that no matter how much you pay for an anti-virus program and malware blocker, somehow an ad pops up on your screen when you close the internet a lot of the time.

There are always more ways to screw you out of your hard earned money than you can dream of.