Crossroads on TV and Computers are Here... Maybe?

Cable style TV (paid) is slowing changing the way we think of content delivery and cost.

Last week I wrote about “who pays for the internet,” and now I’ll expand a little on that this week. Recently more and more people are dropping the paid-for-TV content and moving into delivered or requested model of content for TV style programming. With Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Apple all adding TV programming at free or lower cost, the fight is on.

Think about it this way. Basic cable TV costs around $500 yearly, and that same dollars spent will get you Netflix, HuluPlus and even a yearly Amazon account providing hundreds of hours of TV, for 25% or more in lower cost. So if you watch a certain TV show, think about waiting just one day and watching it at a lower cost with one of these services. The savings could be used to increase your speed on your internet side, or get additional gigabytes on your data packages.

Now, we all know that the cable companies will see this movement as an attack on the revenue from AD sales, which will cause them to inch up the internet cost, but that will take time. Will they flip the switch right away? Doubtful, because the more user fees collected, the lower the overall cost to push the bytes down the internet channel already in place. So if cash is tight think about dropping the TV portion of your bill and head over to the Internet. All you’ll need is a ROKU box or computer hooked up to that big screen TV and presto, instant savings.

CAW (Cool Application of the Week)

With the recent Mac attack of malware and virus threats, this week’s CAW is just for you. Avast, one of my favorite PC (Windows) Antivirus software companies, has released Avast Free for the Mac (Beta). Like its PC brother, it will keep you safe from those new Mac attackers.