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Comment by Felz | Hacker News Reader

This is very interesting, because I wouldn't want to spend that much on movies either. Yet a decade ago, people were happy paying $1000 a year for a cable subscription. Not directly the same value proposition, but similar.

It seems like the price people are willing to pay for entertainment has gone down significantly, in sync with it becoming far cheaper and more abundant. So movie theaters are in trouble if they're selling entertainment by quantity, because the supply only goes up.

I think they're more successful selling cultural commonality; you watch the latest popular release so that you can talk about it with other people, and the marketing has already gotten you excited about it. (I find being pre-excited about something and thus not having to learn about and pick from a huge array of options a value-add all on its own)

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>Yet a decade ago, people were happy paying $1000 a year for a cable subscription.

Many still do. Including myself but this will probably be the year I drop it even though I get no live TV otherwise.

Without a doubt my favorite subscription has been YouTube TV. Can’t recommend enough (no affiliation whatsoever).

It's definitely an option. Though I suspect that, with my Internet bundle, dropping cable and adding this probably wouldn't save me a huge amount of money.

Yeah this is the boat I'm in. Cut the cord almost 10 years ago now (I do live in a town with decent over the air digital) and saved money at first but the "trend" has been to just slowly up the cost of internet.

With a subscription to Netflix ($11) and YoutubeTV ($40) + our base internet cost (~80$/month for 100MB down) we don't actually save much over the TV/internet bundles...if at all. I'm at $130 which is essentially where we were before...just not all going to the same provider now I guess.

For areas like where I live with terrible fiber coverage, the cable industry still effectively has a stranglehold.

Definitely true. However for me personally the value has been less about the cost financially and more about the overall delightful experience you get. It just doesn’t compare. Show notifications, cloud recording, and multi-device support just to name a few. Also, in the past, I feel like attempts to do similar cloud-based TV services have always lacked network selection quality - none of the good stuff was on there. Not the case with YTV - so far it has every show or event that I'm looking for without having to pay for add-ons or additional networks (ie NBA TV).

I still have an old TiVo with lifetime which is really the only reason I still get cable TV. Honestly, if I were to drop cable, I'd probably just do without live TV. It would be a bit of a nuisance but I don't really watch sports or regular TV enough to justify the expense.

Makes sense. At $35-40 a mo, it is indeed a substantially heftier subscription than the normal $5-10 a mo. If only!

just curious how much do you pay for your internet connection?

At $50/month + the $40 for Youtube TV you'd be over $1000 a year (not that this was what you were responding to but I'm curious as thread started w/ $1000 year).

I'm $200/mo for Internet + phone + cable TV (Comcast Triple Play). Phone is mostly there because I have poor cellphone reception and Internet is sometime a bit wonky for video conferencing but I could probably drop it at this point.

Last I looked, Internet would be > $100/month standalone.

Yeah, but in general, wouldn't it be $50/month + $60-70/month for cable and internet?

Right. Was going with $50/month for internet (but I personally can't get it near that cheap) and $40 for YT TV which puts you at $1080/yr.

I guess my real point is who ISN'T paying $1000/yr now? You pay almost that much for the internet package alone in a lot of America.

I pay $75 a month for 300d/30u. Plus $35/mo for YouTube TV.

What I don't understand is why more mainstream theaters don't have "movie nights" or themed screenings or short films. The indie theater in my neighborhood makes great money by being "the cultural community" as you say. Why can't mainstream theaters adopt this mindset instead of relying on families to pay $100 for Transformers 8 and a bucket of popcorn?

I can relax and be myself at home. Eat, etc. Pause the movie.

Theatres are usually pretty uncomfortable, they just have a big screen.

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