[Porsche-O-Phile]

It makes me lol to hear of people paying so much for this. Anyone remember in the 1980s when cable TV was a new technology? I do. Their biggest selling points were (1) more of the kind of (risqué) content people seemed to want that wouldn't be allowed on broadcast networks and (2) NO COMMERCIALS. It took these points (more boobies and innuendos and no commercials) to convince people that television was actually worth paying for.

Years later, the price is 4x what it was then, the content is worse and a third to half of the programming is commercials - many of which are self-promotional BS for the cable company (if their product is so wonderful, why do they constantly need to pitch it to people that are already subscribing, hmmm?) Any "good" shows are buried in tiers bundled with hundreds of channels of utterly unwatchable rubbish in order to milk every last dollar possible out of a public already being fleeced.

While I support the right of businesses to make a profit and the right of stupid consumers to be taken advantage of for their stupidity, I find it troubling that this whole industry was built on negotiating sweetheart deals with local municipalities (dedicated / monopoly rights - no competition in exchange for putting in cabling in a lot of places).

This is akin to the state taking a public road, paid for with public money, then putting a toll on it, raising the toll repeatedly while letting the road fall into disrepair and become clogged with traffic to the point it's worse than alternates (Massachusetts Turnpike anyone?)

The infrastructure has long paid for itself. There should be competition between companies in the same way people are able to pick providers for long-distance land line telephone providers. If so, providers would actually have to compete for business on the basis of content and it might actually get a little better.

In the meantime I'll keep my internet-based on-demand occasional viewing through my Apple TV box or laptop and snicker at those who shell out mightily month after month for such horrendous "service" by companies like comcast, time warner, cox and all the rest of the scheisters.