A Subscription-based Society
November 27th, 2006 by Grant in: Commentary
After downing a cup of coffee last Thursday in an effort to counter the effects of tryptophan, I sat down to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Denver Broncos.
During half time, I learned that my relatives half-way across the country could not enjoy the same past time. Why? Because in order to get the Thanksgiving Day football game, they had to have a subscription to NFL Network.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen the Dallas Cowboys take on some low caliber team-de-jur. The only hope would be that Terrell Owens would do something dumb (again) and we’d have something to talk about at the water cooler on Monday.
But this year, the Chiefs and Broncos, a time-honored match up between two teams that truly hate each others guts when it comes to the grid iron. Mike Celizic has a great column, reflecting my ire for this little tirade.
Evidently, we’ve turned ourselves into a subscription-based society. What once was free, is now just a monthly $10.99 fee away from being mainstream.
Cable television is a prime example. My one TV with rabbit ears is going to become obsolete in the next few years, leaving me no choice but to pay for TV.
Radio? It could be on the same track. When Howard Stern made the move to broadcast from a heavenly repeater, many in his audience were forced to drop the $10.99 a month to get their fix, or drop the shock-jock all together.
Maybe it’s always been this way and I’m just now realizing it. I pay for cable TV, internet, newspaper, magazines…
I fret about what I’ll have to pay for tomorrow that I’m getting today for free. I’m a cash-flow kind of guy, and when you tell me I have to take a chunk of my cash flow and drop it in the mailbox (who am I kidding, it’s an electronic bill payment these days), I don’t take it well.
Prime example? When Comcast raised my bill to over $100 per month for internet and 75 channels of television, of which roughly 60 I don’t even watch and one other I have to be fluent in another language before I can even enjoy it.
Bleh.
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December 3rd, 2006 at 11:00 pm
The part I don’t like about all this is that there really isn’t a free alternative any more. It used to be that you could tell the cable companies to go $crew themselves and hang up your rabit ears. Not so any more though in many areas.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:10 pm
The old rabbit ears still work in my area, Egon, but I can’t speak for everyone. It IS a bit sad that you have to pay $50 per month for basic television these days, but I guess that’s where we’re headed.
-Grant