<story><title>How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don&apos;t ask</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-spectrum-cable-rate-hike-20181030-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drblast</author><text>I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that&amp;#x27;s, &amp;quot;WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don&amp;#x27;t need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; They have a monopoly on a dying service&lt;p&gt;Neither the access nor the bundled content portions are really dying. The assumption they must be bought from the same vendor is, but outside of very high speed plans, internet access tends to have data caps (sometimes capped &lt;i&gt;unless&lt;/i&gt; you buy a TV bundle from the ISP as well as internet service), and OTT services with comparable content are just as expensive as cable plans (and mostly from cable&amp;#x2F;satellite vendors, though Google and Sony have services too), so you end up spending the same money plus eating your data cap if you buy separately instead of getting the content outside of your cap (or maybe even getting the content and getting rid of your cap at the same time.)</text></comment>
<story><title>How much does a cable box really cost? The industry would prefer you don&apos;t ask</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-spectrum-cable-rate-hike-20181030-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drblast</author><text>I have the same reaction every time I read about any cable company, and that&amp;#x27;s, &amp;quot;WTF are you all still giving them your money for?!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;They have a monopoly on a dying service you literally don&amp;#x27;t need at all, and most people hate having to deal with them. The pricing and contracts are antagonistic to customers. Is it just momentum at this point?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reaperducer</author><text>&lt;i&gt;you literally don&amp;#x27;t need at all&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unless you live in a place without broadcast television, or little broadcast television, and with little to no internet service.&lt;p&gt;So pretty much 20% of the United States.  The nation is much larger than the east and west coasts.</text></comment>