This viewpoint on how media has changed over time seems really strange to me. My history would have been almost the reverse—a history of going from everything being expensive (pay per view TV?) and usually low quality as well to almost everything being cheap and many things being literally free, including a lot of high-quality things.
Viliam’s description matches my understanding of the history. TV started out with free over-the-air broadcasting, with admittedly just a few offerings (only three channels originally). They were ad supported, but generally had much fewer ads than today. Between the 1960s and 1980s cable was introduced, and initially was ad-free but paid. Then they gradually introduced ads to the format once people were locked in and hooked to the shows available. Now the quantity of ads is greater than ever, plus it costs money. Today a few channels still offer that free over-the-air broadcasting, but it’s much fewer than there used to be at the peak. So now we’re in a state where you both need to pay and get a large quantity of ads.
Of course, streaming services have somewhat disrupted that model, but many streaming services both cost money and have ads. Plus to get all the same shows as on cable you need a large number of streaming services and they all add up to cost more than the cable package would!
You might say that the quality of the television shows has gone up, and you can definitely say that it’s worth the tradeoff, but it’s not obviously worth it to everyone.
Do you think that people ‘deserve’ free television (i.e. the content, e.g. shows, movies, etc.)? Do you think that ideally it would be publicly financed, e.g. via government taxation?
Personally – and, I think, charitably – all of this looks like a lot of different entities trying to solve an extremely complex set of economic problems, i.e. funding (and ideally profiting-from) the production of ‘television’ content. And I suspect a lot of the particular features, both now and in the recent path, are due to path dependence, e.g. because of the initial medium (radio) by which this kind of content was distributed.
This viewpoint on how media has changed over time seems really strange to me. My history would have been almost the reverse—a history of going from everything being expensive (pay per view TV?) and usually low quality as well to almost everything being cheap and many things being literally free, including a lot of high-quality things.
Viliam’s description matches my understanding of the history. TV started out with free over-the-air broadcasting, with admittedly just a few offerings (only three channels originally). They were ad supported, but generally had much fewer ads than today. Between the 1960s and 1980s cable was introduced, and initially was ad-free but paid. Then they gradually introduced ads to the format once people were locked in and hooked to the shows available. Now the quantity of ads is greater than ever, plus it costs money. Today a few channels still offer that free over-the-air broadcasting, but it’s much fewer than there used to be at the peak. So now we’re in a state where you both need to pay and get a large quantity of ads.
Of course, streaming services have somewhat disrupted that model, but many streaming services both cost money and have ads. Plus to get all the same shows as on cable you need a large number of streaming services and they all add up to cost more than the cable package would!
You might say that the quality of the television shows has gone up, and you can definitely say that it’s worth the tradeoff, but it’s not obviously worth it to everyone.
This is a strange discussion – to me!
Do you think that people ‘deserve’ free television (i.e. the content, e.g. shows, movies, etc.)? Do you think that ideally it would be publicly financed, e.g. via government taxation?
Personally – and, I think, charitably – all of this looks like a lot of different entities trying to solve an extremely complex set of economic problems, i.e. funding (and ideally profiting-from) the production of ‘television’ content. And I suspect a lot of the particular features, both now and in the recent path, are due to path dependence, e.g. because of the initial medium (radio) by which this kind of content was distributed.