| famousringo said:
Except TV isn't free. Even if you're still using rabbit ears, there are costs in terms of arbitrary scheduling and enduring some really terrible advertising. Where I live, a basic digital TV package costs about $60/month. That works out to $720 a year, and let's just assume that I can get all the shows I want without paying more for more channels. The set top box costs an extra $100, and doesn't have PVR functionality. Total cost is $820 for the first year. Now consider that I can count the number of TV shows I want to watch on one hand for any given season. I don't much care for TV. Estimate twenty episodes of five shows and we get a nice, even 100 episodes of content that I want to watch in a year. At $2 a pop, I can get the TV shows I want for $200. Throw in the cost of an Apple TV and I've paid $430, saving almost $400 which can go to movie downloads, games or whatever else. I've also saved the cost of obeying the schedules of the networks and enduring tedious advertisements. I'm not seriously looking at getting an Apple TV right now, (I watch most of the TV I want to watch on DVD, which works pretty well right now, although there are some advantages to downloaded videos over DVDs), but if Apple really can offer all the shows that I want at $2 an episode, plus some startup costs, I'm not crazy for considering the service. |
although I agree the Apple TV isn't acomplete rip-off, for the most part you can watch most shows legally and free right on the networks own website. Anyone with half a brain can hook up their computer to their TV and watch the show competely for free with only like 4 30-sec commercials. Granted this only works if your TV is near your PC, or you're more adventurous like me and willing to run 100ft lengths of cable and figure out how to control your PC remotely.
