So this is what the a la carte advocates want? Two channels (HBO & ESPN) for $35? Bundling seems so obviously the better way to approach this (180 channels for $65).
A la carte shows not channels. The TV people want it to be a discussion about channels, but the concept of channels doesn't make sense when one looks at the idea from a distance. Sports watching seems to be its own world due to the live nature of the content.
Shows? That's even sillier. You'd be paying 10x for a fraction of the content. TV would never work if stations had such a hard time getting folks to sample.
Just pretend you're only paying for your shows and everything else is free. You would not be paying less money a la carte.
But the 160-170 "trash" channels need to be included to have any chance of ever being seen. To the point they are willing to be included for free and in fact some will even pay to be included.
The economics of a la carte just don't make any sense at all.
I'm commenting solely on the factual incorrectness of saying the above was not a deal, when it very clearly was, assuming "deal" means a more economical choice. That's all.
> I'm commenting solely on the factual incorrectness of saying the above was not a deal, when it very clearly was, assuming "deal" means a more economical choice.
And again, this assumes that all channels are equally valuable to you. Spending more money on things you do not want is not more economical.
They do have the same value, and that value is "do I want to pay for this channel?"
The person I replied to said there were 10-20 channels worth paying for, and then complained about the cost of those channels, despite the fact that they were undeniably cheaper than anything the person could get individually.
I hope you realize I have no dog in this fight, and am merely commenting based on internal argument consistency. The argument the above poster made was incorrect, internally. That's all I'm pointing out.
We've now spent the better part of 3 hours talking about this. Consider for a moment the possibility that this isn't a very important distinction, and that your continual insistence on the issue is perhaps detrimental to the greater conversation and HN in general.
> They do have the same value, and that value is "do I want to pay for this channel?"
By that logic, all items in the world have the same value and that value is "do I want to pay for this item"?
They each have a different value based on "what do I want to pay for this channel". It is not a binary option of "I WILL PAY NO MATTER THE COST" and "I WILL NEVER PAY NO MATTER HOW CHEAP".
> The argument the above poster made was incorrect, internally. That's all I'm pointing out.
And all I'm pointing out is that your argument is incorrect.
> We've now spent the better part of 3 hours talking about this.
Which is odd, since all I've been saying is that the choice:
More expensive & more channels vs less expensive & fewer channels
has no clear winner without agreeing on what each particular channel is "worth". This is a classic case of multi-objective optimisation. I'm quite interested in finding out why this is such a disagreeable concept to you.
> Consider for a moment the possibility that this isn't a very important distinction, and that your continual insistence on the issue is perhaps detrimental to the greater conversation and HN in general.
And yet your continual insistence is beneficial? I'm a little confused, it's worth your time to try and point out a problem in someone's thinking, but not worth anyone else's time to point out problems in yours?
I'm unsure as to why pointing out problems in your argument is against the spirit of HN. Perhaps you want a hackernews where we all misquote each other and logical flaws are left unchallenged. I'd hoped we'd all try and at least have sound arguments, which is what prompted you to post your original sarcastic comment.
I'd hoped that through discussion we could straighten it out, but that seems futile now as I've repeated myself enough times in different ways. Instead I'll just ask that you look at the honestly look at the claims you've made and see if you find any problems with them.
And finally, in case it isn't clear, I think that both you and urda are wrong.
10-20 channels worth buying at a price of $3.25-$6.50/channel is a better economical choice than 1-2 channels worth buying unbundled at a price of $17.50/channel.
Everything else here is you making HN a worse place to be. That's it.
> 10-20 channels worth buying at a price of $3.25-$6.50/channel is a better economical choice than 1-2 channels worth buying unbundled at a price of $17.50/channel.
It's simply not the case that spending more money to get more channels is always more economical just because the cost per channel goes down. Which is more economical depends on the value you associate with each channel.
If one channel cost $20, or I could get that channel and 9 others for $40, which is better for me? It depends on whether or not those 9 channels are worth $20 to me. If they're not, then it's not a better deal. Just because I might be willing to pay some money for those 9, doesn't mean I'm willing to pay $20 for them. If those channels are worth more than $20 to me, then it may well be a good deal for me.
Therefore, packages are good deals for some, unbundled channels are good deals for others.
The person I replied to set the value of the 10-20 channels at "worth paying for" at the price set, so the value beyond that is irrelevant for this discussion.
"Worth buying" is a boolean. It's either "worth" or it's not, because we've already establish that "worth" channels are willing to be paid for at $17.50, so less than $17.50 is still within any pricing range that might exist.
Would it be easier for you to grasp if we called them "quality" channels? 10-20 quality channels? Paying for 10-20 quality channels that are bundled together is more economical than paying for each quality channel on its own, based on the values given by the commenter.
Your "scale" idea is just a pointless intermediary step towards deciding if a channel is "worth" or not. While yes, you could decide what cost you're willing to pay for each channel, you will still arrive at a "yes/no" decision for each channel (a decision that will only get more generous the less expensive the cost of the individual channel), which will be the "worth" value I've been talking about.
> "Worth buying" is a boolean. It's either "worth" or it's not, because we've already establish that "worth" channels are willing to be paid for at $17.50, so less than $17.50 is still within any pricing range that might exist.
What part of their comment did you interpret as them thinking each of those 20 channels is worth $17.50 on their own?
We have only established that two specific channels were worth that much. Not any of the others. This is an absolutely vital distinction.
> . While yes, you could decide what cost you're willing to pay for each channel, you will still arrive at a "yes/no" decision for each channel (a decision that will only get more generous the less expensive the cost of the individual channel)
Right, so if I'm willing to pay $17.50 for HBO, I'm obviously willing to pay $5 for HBO. But being willing to pay $17.50 for HBO doesn't mean I'm willing to pay $5 for a different channel.
> based on the values given by the commenter.
urdu did not specify how valuable those channels were to them. They just said that it was 20 (let's call them "quality channels") for $65 and that wasn't much of a deal.
> Would it be easier for you to grasp if we called them "quality" channels? 10-20 quality channels? Paying for 10-20 quality channels that are bundled together is more economical than paying for each quality channel on its own, based on the values given by the commenter.
And the decision is not "buy them all on their own or buy them all together" it's "buy some on their own and not others or buy them all together". Nobody here is arguing that buying the same items at a higher price each is better value, they're arguing that buying a subset of them at a higher price each can be better value overall.
This should be obvious if we split out the two channels like so:
Package A: Two channels at $17.50 each
Package B: Eighteen channels at $1.67 each
If I don't value the channels in B enough, it is more economical to me to only buy package A rather than package A and package B.
> Bundling seems so obviously the better way to approach this (180 channels for $65).
180 basic channels, not including HBO. HBO is $15/month on top of your basic cable package, at least from my cable provider. Oh Showtime, too? That's another $15. Oh, Cinemax? Yup, another $15.
Plus, at least in Redwood City, CA, Comcast wouldn't give us HBO on our $63/basic cable, they wanted us to purchase a Digital Cable Box (~ $90), and then pay $85/month for Digital Cable.
And then, and only then, would they give us the 6 month $15/month HBO promo.
Between Amazon Prime (Which I have already for free shipping), Netflix ($8/month), and HBO ($15/month) - I have pretty much all the entertainment I'm really interested in for $23/month.
Every so often something good will pop up that Netflix doesn't have - at which point I'll go to ITunes for $20-25 to pick up a season.
On an annual basis, way, way, way less than I would have paid for cable.
My only concern is that I don't know if I'll be able to watch HBO on the road, or whether I'll need an Apple TV.
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Americans, Justified, Walking Dead, Daily Show, Broadchurch, Downton Abbey (not sure which of these you're able to view)?
I'll cut you some slack on not getting any of the major networks since the cheap digital antennas can work very well.
In San Francisco we get 180 channels + HBO + DVR + 50mbps internet for $100 month. That includes being able to watch TV/DVR/OnDemand on pretty much any device, from anywhere.
I've actually purchased Some of those from iTunes (Mad Men), if I want to talk about them with others. Otherwise I usually can wait a few years for them to come out on Netflix (Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Downton Abbey).
Perhaps I just got so used to not having a TV (last time around 2003), that I've adjusted my behavior and expectations such that I don't miss it. If I was a sports junky, this would probably be different - that seems to be the last bastion of Cable TV - once that goes, it will be a good thing that the major cable companies are also the major internet suppliers.
No, I just want HBO and don't want to pay for the expensive base cable packages required to get it at all... Happy to pay for Netflix and Hulu Plus too since it adds value to me where as incrementally more cable channels do not.
Bundling is better for some consumers, unbundled is better for some consumers, depending on their preferences. An incomplete analysis can be found here: https://livingeconomics.org/article.asp?docId=288 , incomplete because it doesn't reflect that when moving from a pure bundling to mixed-bundling regime, the bundle prices should theoretically increase, and also because it's an analysis of markets where marginal costs are positive.
Furthermore, for TV in particular, there's the effect that an unbundled channel will get lower viewership than a bundled channel, and thus will receive lower advertising revenues, so the unbundled price will be driven up considerably higher.
In short, people who are crazy about one or two channels/content sources will love unbundling, people who watch a lot of channels will hate the (inexorable) advent of unbundling.
Previously, it wasn't just that TV channels were bundled. Rather, the prices for each individual channel weren't known. How could you even decide if the bundle is a good deal without knowing the price of its components?
So, even for the subset of people who would prefer bundling, this is a great thing! Now we can actually tell if a bundle is being competitive.
