For sure. I'll never go back to cable. But the way the streaming market has developed, I'm not sure I'm down for that long term, either.
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I went ahead and signed up for the Fubo free preview. They charge $10 more than the listed rates for the regional sports packages so it's $85 for most of what Youtube.tv has plus the regionals.

If you pay quarterly, you get a few more channels such as MLB TV.

It's probably worthwhile if you need your sports fix. We shall see.

But honestly, I was paying $125/mo for DirecTV 5 years ago so I'm still WELL ahead of the game here.
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Paying for cable's tiers isn't really any different than streamers having to pay for multiple streaming services, in terms of access issues. If you want ESPN, you get the sports package, etc...

Streaming was never going to be a long-term good for consumers. It was always going to lead to tighter controls by companies, and it was always destined to be that people would end up paying more money for less. The transition is still happening, and it will either work out that way, or it will collapse as a media method.
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I have DirectTV Stream. It's $99 a month but I get the locals and all the sports channels. Royals, Blues and Cardinals are my main tv watching so its worth it.
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I'd pay more for anyone else at this point.

DTV pissed me off something awful and when I tried to get any sort of improvement in pricing, etc... they just said "we'll miss you..." and that was that.

I had satellite and their streaming service wasn't very good yet so they were all but trying to wean people off the satellite service. The problem was that they were doing it BEFORE their streaming model was up to speed. And their response seemed to be "eh, you'll be back..."

Fuck 'em.
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Welp, as a recent "let's play the streaming bullshit game", after I selected the $73 basic package for YouTube TV, the next screen was a fucking LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG list of add-ons for other channels. Again, my $180/month is down to $70/month without Google TV, but there's no fucking way I could "a'la carte" add-on the add-ons I need to add-on to get back to what Google and/or Time Warner (before Google) offered for $180/month.

As we were sitting here watching the YouTube TV page try to up-sell us to into a monthly bill that was way above what we used to pay for Google, we just laughed and saw the scam for what it is, a scam. In the end, these people are assholes.

We'll see..
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Isn't that last point kind of what everyone wanted? The cry was never that people should get everything for free, but they want to be able to choose what they want so they aren't paying for stuff they don't want. Like you said, if you want ESPN you can pay for ESPN+ that costs under $10 instead of having to pay $100+ for cable :-)

And of course companies have come up with new ways to separate you from your dollar. Not really anything new.
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People wanted to chose just what they want, rather than paying more, because they failed to understand that an a la carte system will eventually lead to higher cost combined with fewer viewing options.


And, if you wanted ONLY ESPN, that would be one thing. But who is buying ONLY ESPN, rather than ESPN + X + Y + so on?
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why is it a scam? You dont have to select anything. And better than DirecTV and other providers, you're not tied into any contract when you do sign up or add on any of the premium channels. You can walk away at any time (and no equipment to return by 'x' date or a massive surcharge, etc. etc. etc.).

I'll never go back to cable or Satellite.......especially now that YouTubeTV has the NFL package.
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Maybe the better word/phrase would have been it's "bullshit". Because, for me to get what cable offered (Chiefs, Royals, NHL, Science, local, NASA, bla bla bla) for $180/month, I have to a'la carte some shit together, maybe got to two different streamers, to get back to that.

I get it, this 57 different remotes is fine for some, but Apps layered on top of smart devices connected to my smart TV is hard to say is "better" because I can watch on my phone if I want to.

Perhaps JPB said it best, if you watch what going on you get this: "But who is buying ONLY ESPN, rather than ESPN + X + Y + so on?"

I bet we won't see any true a'la cart services offered that say "just the channels you want, $2 a month for each of the channels for each you want" deals. They know most of us could whittle that list down to ~10-15 channels and, well, that's not very profitable.
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Very well said, less for more..

But with sports leagues are selling their rights to shitty assholes like Bally Sports, it's only going to get worse.
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If it ain’t on OTA antenna, I don’t miss it. I’m back to baseball on the radio and I dig it as much as I did when I was a kid.

Fiber internet/Netflix/Hulu and Netflix is getting the boot soon.
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:-) Tell me more...
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Which takes me back to what I posted a little bit earlier in the thread:




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Well, in my defense, I've only paid $0 so far. :-) Canceling on day-8 of my 10-day free trial assuming YouTube will try and find a way to fuck me on the "cancel any time" claim.
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