Streaming

I find streaming television to be a pretty unfulfilling experience for the most part.  In my apartment, we can’t run a cable to the front room without tearing up walls or running cable all around the molding which would be unsightly.

So, we stream.

We have cable in our HOA.  I find that streaming is slow.  It takes awhile for the channel to open up and I find I have to login continuously with different channels.  I haven’t bought Apple’s service, Chromcast or YouTube but I might have to.  It’s frustrating to me since I am cheap and am already paying for cable.

There are so many gatekeepers in streaming and they are put there by regulators.  I wish the FCC would just blow up the whole system and let the market decide.  I think this is a place where cryptocurrency could be very meaningful.  Or not, just digital fiat.

CBS charges extra for their content.  The only thing I am interested in watching on CBS is SEC football and NFL football so if I can’t find a work around, I just do something else.

Switching channels is a pain when you stream.  You can’t flip back and forth, which is optimal a lot of times when you are watching athletic events.   Watching pro baseball on streaming is a total pain.  I resorted to getting an old transistor and listening to the games.  Ironically, as long as you can putter doing something, it’s a nice way to follow the team. However, when I was up in Minnesota at my place I had no access at all.  I am looking forward to the new Cubs network and hope it alleviates the problems.  MLB is really backwards on their policies.

When you stream HBO or Netflix or something like that, it’s not a big deal.  Streaming works well.

As everything becomes unbundled, it will be interesting to watch how it all shakes out.  Economists will be watching as the fight between producer and consumer surplus manifests itself in prices and margins.