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Comment on HBO Max is removing features from my plan without reducing my price.

Why are you so bent about this?

Again, how old are you? Do you actually remember this time? I gave one anecdote, but ask literally anyone my age and they’ll say the same. You certainly know people my age, don’t take my word for it, ask them what sleepovers were like before and after cable tv became a thing. Everyone my age remembers a massive shift, especially with Showtime.

With/without cable wasn’t an easy change. Lots of people didn’t accept it easily because it seemed technically complex. That’s part of why my family was an early adopter: my dad was an aerospace engineer, so it was a no-brainier.

The televisions sold in the late 70s were not set up for cable, so you needed a cable box and to configure your tv a certain way – typically by setting one of your two dials to channel 2, 4, or I think UVH 12 (?it’s been a while, but it depended on your tv), you had to plug a cable box into your tv (which was nowhere near as simple as now), and then maybe sacrifice a goat. I joke, but the wiring out of the back of those things wasn’t easy. It wasn’t clear ports with matching inputs, but more like in the back of old school audio speakers, but more of them.

That doesn’t sound hard, but for most people the tv was a magic box that pictures came out of. These were your grandparents, they weren’t good at technology.

The majority of channels had ads because, again, they were just the same channels as without cable.

In the late 80s, yeah. That’s after what I’m talking about. It sounds like you’re talking about the era of Nickelodeon and the height of Showtime/Cinemax porn. I’m talking about more than a decade before that.

Yes, by that point, cable had settled into the subscription + ad model I’m saying was the down slide. I’m talking about way before that, when it hadn’t yet devolved.

Again, I’m not making this up, and I kinda wonder what you think my motivation would be to do so, but I’m very curious how old you are and if you’re just going on things you’ve read or if you were alive for this.

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ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Can confirm, lol. And for cable you had to have coax from the wall to the cable box, and again from the cable box to an adapter that went into one of the existing ports. Later, you plugged your cable box coax straight into the TV, but that was late 80s if I remember correctly. Waaaaay before “Skinemax”, lol.

And even then not everyone had cable. It was an added expense, and there was a LOT more going out for entertainment because it was cheap and affordable. I saw The Police in 1983 for $15 general seating. In the 70s dance was HUGE, as were bicycles and skateboards, and then later in the 80s you had malls and bowling and mini golf and whatever blew your skirt up. Pandemic aside, this thing where everyone stays inside and never goes out is the exact opposite of how it was then, so you saved your money for what YOU wanted to do, which was rarely sit home and watch TV. In my group of friends, among a dozen of us or so, maybe two had cable in the early 80s, but that grew, especially with MTV.

As an aside, I have to ask: Did you ever get sent up to the roof by your parents after a storm to reset the antenna? Or be the unpaid holder of the rabbit ears by the TV, moving this way and that so your old man could watch his game with the least amount of snow and rolling horizontal lines? I did.

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- LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  . As an aside, I have to ask: Did you ever get sent up to the roof by your parents after a storm to reset the antenna? Or be the unpaid holder of the rabbit ears by the TV, moving this way and that so your old man could watch his game with the least amount of snow and rolling horizontal lines? I did.
  
  I was a weird nerd, and some of my fondest memories are helping my dad do engine work on our wood-sided station wagon (I was such a clické) and going with him to the tv store to pick up vacuum tubes for the tv after a loud pop and faint waft of smoke, then shimmying ass-upward like spider man to hold the flashlight at the correct angle whilst my dad pulled the particle-board (I think, maybe cardboard) back off the television and taught me what every single part inside did.
  
  Best time of my life.
  
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  - ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That is so cool. I learned those things, but only after I left. Started on TRS-80s (“trash 80s”) with the heavily armored clacky keyboard and then got into early PCs. I still remember Pong, lol.
    
    Speaking of which, it was probably masonite or some kind of hard board on the back of the tv; it’s older than you think, and was on the back of a lot of those wonderful Art Deco radios of the 30s and 40s even before it was on the backs of televisions. The tv we had when I was a young kid was almost the size of a couch, so I have no idea what was on the back of it because I could never have moved it. But I remember the vacuum tubes, radios had those as well. And plugging a bad fuse with a penny, which probably wasn’t the best idea in the world but everybody did it.
    
    (We had the faux-wood sided station wagon too, lol.)
    
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    LillyPip@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    almost the size of a couch, so I have no idea what was on the back of it because I could never have moved it.
    
    Oh yeah! Exactly! Mine was very similar to this, but a bit narrower. It was a behemoth, plus the cord was very short.
    
    Thus the shimmying ass-upwards to hold the torch. There was scant space back there.
    
    it was probably masonite or some kind of hard board on the back of the tv
    
    I think you’re right. It was a dark, dense, and very thick board, but not actual wood. I had a radio or clock or something with the same backing, now you mention it. I hadn’t paid much attention except it was thicker than the ikea shit, lol.
    
    And plugging a bad fuse with a penny,
    
    Wait, what? I completely missed that growing up.
    
    Brb.
    
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Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In the late 80s, yeah. That’s after what I’m talking about.

www.encyclopedia.com/…/rise-cable-television

cablecompare.com/…/the-complete-history-of-cable-…

www.ncta.com/cables-story

No, I’m talking about before the 70s when cable exclusive didn’t exist, the only “exclusives” that existed before then was signal from far away local stations that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible with regular antennas, but they were still channels available without cable in their local community. Heck, the FCC forced cable companies to only carry local stations!

Also the number of subscribers might have been lower, but the number of TVs too. Cable subscribers before the 70s still represented a high enough portion of TV watchers that local stations put pressure on the FCC to regulate it.

HBO launched in 72, in 1980 there was 28 cable exclusive networks vs a multitude of local stations.

Why are you so bent about this?

Because I’m tried of seeing people who were kids or not even born back then pretend that it was better than it truly was. Facts are important and “the point of cable TV was to not have ads” isn’t a fact, it’s a lie that started from people who remember wrong (or only watched the few ads free channels because they were kids and uninterested in local TV or didn’t live it at all) when it’s extremely easy to prove the contrary. Heck, your parents would be the ones who could say considering they were the ones who decided to subscribe, not you.

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