One monoply fighting another monopoly... Break them both up into smaller pieces.
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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“Whoever wins, we lose.”
Isn't the point of directtv kind of anti monopoly. Satellite has no specific footprint like cable where geographic monopolies are carved out.... But the real monopoly is when it's all exclusively on ESPN or whatever Disney's streaming service is. Like apple TV with mls being the 1 global streamer.
AT&T and Google don't have any problem being monopolies without a geographic lock on things.
AT&T purchased DirecTV, then to get out of direct monopoly charges they spun it off as its own company but retained 70% ownership.
Just about every decent sized company out there is just a single entity in a giant monopolistic trench coat.
"is" or "strives to be" a monopoly? I think the value of monopoly criticism gets diluted when used to liberally to not actually describe them. I would not say every "decent sized company" out there is a monopoly...
Feeling sorry for all the direct TV customer service reps right now.
If it makes you feel better I'm sure AT&T is working on replacing them with an AI chatbot as we speak
It doesn't. Thank you.
lmfao i love this. ima steal that
Technically at&t doesn't own DirecTV anymore but they do have a big share, and DirecTV still uses a lot of their back-end tools. Probably support infra too?
My dad is ready to tear them a new asshole tomorrow when they open 😂
Tell your dad to keep asking for a manager and don't stop until he gets someone who can tell him something. Don't take it out on the front lines.
We left the room with Bob's Burgers or King of the Hill or something on FXX. By the time we got back that shit was gone
This also screws over AT&T U-verse coaxial TV subscribers, like me, not just internet-streaming DirecTV customers :(
We all have our last straw with CableTV, maybe this is the one for you to cut the cord too! It's cheaper on the other side, I promise.
It’s cheaper on the other side, I promise.
Is it? Because if you add up all the streaming services out there, it's a lot more expensive than cable. And, unlike cable, if you don't pay for them all, you don't get to watch their content. That used to be just for a handful of premium channels on cable. Now you miss thousands of hours of content with tons of new content every month because you refuse to pay that streaming service's $15 a month fee.
The cheaper side is a VPN and a pirate's life for me.
Ah, well then shiver me timbers, I be havin' no quarrel with ye!
Granted, my comment is subjective to what you watch and how often you watch things, but here's how this cheap ass tight wad did it:
I was spending $117/mo on DirectTV. My family wanted Disney, some movie choices and I wanted Discovery and News. When I cancelled DirectTV I bought:
- RCA OTA outdoor antenna $50
- Roku Ultimate $90
The ota antenna took the place of my dish, so it fit perfectly and gave me all local channels plus local news.
The roku opened up for us to get Disney+ and SlingTV Orange, costing $48/mo. while saving half the cost on our normal monthly Directtv.
Now, we also subscribe off and on to other subscriptions, binge watch crap and cancel, but I will admit I do pirate stuff from time to time too using a gen1 hacked fire stick.
For most people and even without pirating, doing this is enough to get your TV fix, thus the comment. Still, I'm sure there's people out there that want those 100 channels and there's just no resolve for that situation without spending a lot more.
How many hours of content are you watching every day? You don't need all of them. And it isn't some two year contract like cable is. You can cancel or resubscribe anytime. It would be more like if cable allowed you to split your bill into batches of channels and you could choose which ones you wanted to pay for every month.
Me alone? Not as much as my family as a whole.
Yes, it’s much cheaper. Maybe not if you tried to replicate the package but why would you? Most people don’t watch everything. More importantly, streaming frees you from their schedule and opens the possibility of binge watching entire seasons.
For me:
- FROM triple play including 300Mb internet, most channels but no premiums
- TO gigabit Ethernet, 2-3 streaming services at a time
- SAVED half every month
Companies shouldn't be able to place their customers in the middle of their negotiations like this.
It's so annoying really, DirecTV has honestly done a good job to try and keep all these conflicts away from their customers. Linear is dying, they are trying to keep it functional while they can.
All these channels (broadcast especially) try to ask for a bigger cut, which leads to customer bill increases. Broadcast shouldn't even be allowed to, because they get access to public-owned radio spectrum to provide a public service and make some money when that public service isn't needed.
DirecTV retransmitting those channels specifically does nothing but help the broadcast station reach an audience that otherwise wouldn't. (Especially in locations like the Intermountain West.) They should be thankful for it, not charge for it, nor be allowed to. The retransmit literally costs them nothing and reaps them free ad dollars.
Linear will likely be replaced with the clusterfuck that streaming TV now is, DirecTV will eventually have to pivot or die.
Not trying to sound like an apologist nor a fanboi, but as far as companies go, DTV has been more flexible than most streamers (their stream arm anyway.) However, they're just going to continue to have these battles until companies like Disney can pull their channels and get people to pay for all their silly apps directly.
It is a bummer on some level, the end of Linear is kinda nice. Unlimited cloud DVR, fast forward through commercials, all your content in one place.
Can't wait to see the "underground" Android VM with all the TV apps baked in to present a unified UI like Linear, hah. Like Pidgin for TV.
There was this company Aereo that offered the ability to rent individual antennas in your local market and stream that over the Internet and the supreme court killed that too.
And they ruled Aereo was a cable company on the one hand so it was violating the law by not paying carriage fees...And then later when Aereo sought a compulsory license because it was a "cable company" according to the supreme court - they ruled against Aereo because it's not a cable company.
It's pretty obvious the public service part of OTA comes in second behind profit.
DirecTV is actually refusing to air one of the two local stations here due to some dispute. I can't believe that's allowable. I thought they were required to offer all local channels. They used to be.