Hacker News Reader

Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

Too many commercials probably isn’t the main reason people cancel their cable-TV service, he said. “But it’s definitely in the top five.”

It's not the top reason I switched to Netflix (and now a couple other streaming services), but it's the top reason that keeps me from going back.

When I travel and try to watch TV in a hotel, the commercials make it unbearable, I'll burn data from my cell phone before I'd try to watch anything on TV. I'm not sure if the commercials have really gotten worse or if I've just lost my tolerance for them.

When I moved and signed up for cable internet (sadly comcast was my only choice) they offered a year of free basic cable, I declined since I knew I wouldn't watch it.

View on HN

I hate that part of what I'm paying for in hotels is the damn TV. TVs in hotel rooms have become completely pointless, just like telephones did 20 years ago. Like you, if I want TV I'll use my cell connection or the hotel's wifi to watch Netflix. Hotel rooms without TVs don't seem to exist in the US, but if they did, I'd make it a point to stay there.

Pack an HDMI cable? I usually stream Netflix or play video games on those TVs

A surprising amount of hotel TVs don't have a working HDMI port (disabled via firmware lock). Apparently it's intended to work as an anti-theft mechanism, but personally it just makes me hate the hotel.

I’d love a hotel TV if it has a Chromecast.

New TV deployments at Extended Stay America include Chromecast. I am deploying them now. :)

Extended stay hotels usually don’t have locked down HDMI ports. We stayed in one for months when we were in between our lease being up and waiting for our house to be built.

Some do, e.g. I visited Omena Hotels (https://www.omenahotels.com/en/) a couple of times last year and the rooms had a TV with Chromecast (and Miracast).

I use the telephone all the time in hotels but not for outside calls of course. It's basically a customer service line/alarm clock.

True. It's still handy for ordering room service and reporting a maintenance problem, but I never use it for outside calls. Probably because in the past hotels used telephones as a profit center and charged exhorbitant rates for outside calls. No idea if they still do that, but I behave as if they do.

I have Comcast now as well, as they are the only provider to offer (barely) functional speeds where I am.

For my “promo” price I had to get cable. I simply convinced them to not send me the cable box.

Good luck reminding them of that when they ask for the box back later.

> I'm not sure if the commercials have really gotten worse or if I've just lost my tolerance for them.

In the same way that processed food has gotten tastier, commercials have gotten more attention grabbing. Whether that's "worse" or "better" depends on your perspective, but it's the result of a competitive marketplace.

Yes. I'm definitely way less tolerant of them, now that I'm used to commercial-free TV.

It’s not just the commercials. Too many hotel TVs are horrible calibrated. Especially the LGs. They all have the soap opera effect and no way to turn it off without Googling trying to find the right Konami code.

Luckily I have unlimited data on both my phone and iPad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com