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Flaviano Bada

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Aug 2, 2024, 8:47:20 AM8/2/24

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From MSFT's side, I think it's more about adding value to their already excellent Xbox Live Gold service, and if they attract more customers to subscribe to Gold because of the features they're adding, great.

On the other hand, I've been a cord cutter for years. Why pay for a ton of content I don't care about when I can get most of the content I want for free? The rest of the content I want can either be watched via my quite cheap streaming-only Netflix account or by purchasing DVDs.

This Verizon FiOS deal doesn't do much for me. It's much the same as the Hulu deal with MSFT where you can only access the Hulu content on XBL Gold if you subscribe to Hulu Plus (which I have no reason or desire to do). Because the cable companies refuse to change, they're becoming irrelevant.

Yeah, well, it might not do a lot of that. I picked up an xbox at a garage sale with the intention of using it solely for streaming netflix. I didn't know that you had to subscribe to MS's service to be able to do that. It angered me, as Netflix doesn't (or shouldn't) actually use the xbox live service, doesn't add any value to the netflix service, almost doubles the cost of the service, and I'd get to give yet more money to Microsoft in exchange for exactly nothing.

The xbox went to the goodwill, and I've warned a few other people who were thinking of doing the same thing to avoid using the xbox for it. If Microsoft was a little less greedy, they may have actually sold me some games and made some money from me, instead of leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I think you vastly underestimate how much you'd pay on an a la carte basis for the niche channels you list. AMC Networks has operating expenses of about $750 million. They obviously get revenue from ad sales, but the bulk of their revenue comes from cable operators. If instead of receiving payments from the 96 million US households that get AMC programming, they had to be paid by the households that actually want AMC programming (their highest-rated program, The Walking Dead, drew 6.6 million viewers Sunday night), the costs would be very high.

Cable providers just don't git it. All there off brand channels are only financially successful because of bundling channels. If you AMC's viewership is 96 Million, just think how few other really off brand cable channels reach.

I cut the cord about 2-3 years ago. Subscribed to NetFlix. Haven't looked back, doubt I will. Wake me up with HBO and Showtime(the only two cable offerings I really miss) are available w/o a monthly subscription to the crap that currently goes with them, and I'm in.

Would like to make a post about xbox .During the summer I paid for internet for the house so my boys had a gold membership that stopped in august .I find out today that my credit card has been charged the last 2 months for live which we do not use nor new we had .I run my laptop off my phone .If you think you have to have live I would wipe out your credit card info from your unit as I was told by Microsoft ANYONE can get into it and you to will be paying someone's funtime .Microsoft being the greedy people they are would of course not refund my money .

I'm a bit confused by the article. I think the author is ranting a little too much against cable companies and just not appreciating what is happening here. Picture this: Your house doesn't have every single room wired with a coaxial cable. You don't want to spend a ton of money wiring your house. You've got a room you would like your kids to watch Nick, Nick Jr, or Cartoon Network but this room has no coaxial. Now here's where it gets interesting. Your Xbox 360 is streaming live TV through the Internet. This isn't pre-recorded data files sitting on a Netflix or Hulu server. This is LIVE TV being streamed straight to your Xbox 360 through Wfi. In other words, this is (as far as I know) the first time you've been able to watch cable TV wirelessly. Sure there's the added expense of Xbox Live Gold but you can get those cards cheap if you look for discounts/sales AND you're not renting a cable box for $5-$10 a month.