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Penny Arcade - Comic - Subscriptor
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Subscriptor
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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I commiserate with Tycho deeply here.
HBO Go no longer exists and people using that service now have HBO Max. Unless they’re streaming via roku or Amazon devices because distribution contracts have not been finalized with their companies.
I think you just proved their point.
HBO, HBO Go, and HBO Now all had all the same content. HBO Go was for people subscribed to HBO via cable, while HBO Now is for getting HBO content without paying via cable. HBO Go is now gone because anyone subscribing to HBO via cable should have access to HBO Max. HBO Now should go away too, but AT&T is in dispute with some of the streaming box providers like Roku and Amazon FireTV over HBO Max, so HBO Now is sticking around for the short term.
In the super long term, regular cable HBO will likely go away as well as cable dies a long, slow death. But as mentioned before, if you're subscribed to cable HBO, you get HBO Max as well.
So most people now either have HBO with HBO Max included, or are subscribed directly to HBO Max. If someone is still subscribed to HBO Now, they probably should switch over the HBO Max for the same price, unless they have a Roku or FireTV.
Which is part of the reason why people moved away from cable in the first place, but hey what can you do.
Third Base!
But now instead of a set-top box from the cable company that has 3000 channels, I now have a little box that plugs into my TV that has 3000 apps on it.
Instead of asking my mom which channel my cartoons are on, I'm now asking my wife which service the series is on.
Yes, it's a bit of a reinvention of the wheel. When people would always say they wanted a la carte cable, I always thought "a la carte or not, they're still going to want to squeeze you for the same amount a month, or preferably more".
I will say the significant thing we've improved is that we have play-on-demand rather than "you'll either plan on being in front of the TV or make arrangements to record it".
With HBO, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney we’re paying about $47 a month.
To even reach the point where HBO is offered with Comcast is $85. For 12 months where it’s then bumped up to $135. 24 months later it’s up to $145 for “processing fees” they were so gracious to handle up to that point. That stuff, of course, is mentioned nowhere near the advertised price.
And sure, you can always call them, haggle, and threaten to leave when it increases but I’d rather not deal with that nonsense.
Home Box Office has never been more relevant.
To clarify, I was talking about the non-streamed stuff they had back then, when people were still wanting a la carte TV. I'm saying back then, with what was being produced and none of it was on-demand.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Also there are quite a few free streaming options and hulu originally was one of them. The one negative I have with the streaming services is that now they don't provide warnings in advance when a show is going to expire like they used to. A few services like disney going after exclusive rights for some content is a bit annoying as well. Some have bad video players that are unstable like crunchyroll.
The only improvement tv wise is stuff like roku where you can watch tv without having to resort to the extortion of cable depending on where you live.