Where Will it End?
When I was just a kid, never did I dream I'd be living in the day of computers. That is just a small part of things I never dreamed about...
One other thing that I didn't dream about.. and makes me very angry.. is what is happening with TV.
When I was young all you had to do was to be able to afford to buy a television to be able to watch the (not so many) shows and movies on television. Of course when I think back, there weren't a whole lot of shows, since it was in it's "infancy".. but it did allow you to watch many movies... and all of it was FREE.
You used to look at roofs of houses and see all sorts of antenna's standing majestically to receive the waves that magically put a picture on your screen. And if you couldn't afford those big fancy antennas... there was always the dreaded "rabbit ear" antennas that sat atop your television (sometimes it helped to put tinfoil on them to help clear things up). At times you had a snowy picture, but somehow it didn't matter if it was something you really wanted to see, you wiped your blurry eyes and watched it anyway. And it was FREE.
When cable came along... at an alarming price.. not everyone could afford it, but it didn't matter, because you could still watch television with your antenna. "Cable" gave you more stations and great reception, and movies that you wouldn't normally see on television for years to come, but ... it was still an OPTION, and if you couldn't afford it, you still had TV.
Times change, as we all know. And fewer and fewer OPTIONS are given to us, I believe that's called "free enterprise", ..wait.. then again...maybe it's the Robin Hood Effect in reverse... steal from the poor and give to the rich?! Ah, well.. either way, the poor get screwed again and again.
It isn't bad enough that the poor (I think that's considered earning under 18,000 a year now... or something like that) have to do without many things that others don't have to do without, and it isn't bad enough most suffer with a lot of depression.. then they take away something entertaining, something that might lift spirits, or let a person at least escape, for just a little while, away from the everyday horrors of surviving, but making it cost more then they could possibly afford. Ah well.. who cares?
So along comes Cable to the point that Antennas no longer work.. one cannot try to escape the everyday hardships by concentrating on something other than their miserable "just existing life"...
And now... along comes HD TV... slowly but surely making the TVs that aren't brand new and aren't more expensive creep out of existence...and of course... they will charge more.
Sometimes it's hard for me to remember when Radio and Television were free (for the price of purchasing said television or radio..), ah, yes.. paid radio has also begun.. and before long there will be no more free radio either.
Don't get me wrong.. I like much of the technology that has come along... and yes, I know there's always a price to pay. I guess what I don't understand is why it has to cost so much. Why do the inventors and others of this technology have to become billionaires "overnight"? Shouldn't things be made so that even the lowest paid individual can afford it too?
I can remember learning that most people.. in the darkest of times like during war or in the time of depression.. would try to find a way to go to a movie, to escape for just a while.. to help keep their own sanity. Television became the new "theater" and although many times it's also condemed as not being good for kids to watch so much television, it's also a savior of sorts to many... the forgotten many.. the ones that always get left behind, many.
Sometimes I wonder where it will all end.
..and sometimes I'm glad I won't be around to see it.
...and that's only one of many things I don't understand, and probably never will.
'Till next time....
One other thing that I didn't dream about.. and makes me very angry.. is what is happening with TV.
When I was young all you had to do was to be able to afford to buy a television to be able to watch the (not so many) shows and movies on television. Of course when I think back, there weren't a whole lot of shows, since it was in it's "infancy".. but it did allow you to watch many movies... and all of it was FREE.
You used to look at roofs of houses and see all sorts of antenna's standing majestically to receive the waves that magically put a picture on your screen. And if you couldn't afford those big fancy antennas... there was always the dreaded "rabbit ear" antennas that sat atop your television (sometimes it helped to put tinfoil on them to help clear things up). At times you had a snowy picture, but somehow it didn't matter if it was something you really wanted to see, you wiped your blurry eyes and watched it anyway. And it was FREE.
When cable came along... at an alarming price.. not everyone could afford it, but it didn't matter, because you could still watch television with your antenna. "Cable" gave you more stations and great reception, and movies that you wouldn't normally see on television for years to come, but ... it was still an OPTION, and if you couldn't afford it, you still had TV.
Times change, as we all know. And fewer and fewer OPTIONS are given to us, I believe that's called "free enterprise", ..wait.. then again...maybe it's the Robin Hood Effect in reverse... steal from the poor and give to the rich?! Ah, well.. either way, the poor get screwed again and again.
It isn't bad enough that the poor (I think that's considered earning under 18,000 a year now... or something like that) have to do without many things that others don't have to do without, and it isn't bad enough most suffer with a lot of depression.. then they take away something entertaining, something that might lift spirits, or let a person at least escape, for just a little while, away from the everyday horrors of surviving, but making it cost more then they could possibly afford. Ah well.. who cares?
So along comes Cable to the point that Antennas no longer work.. one cannot try to escape the everyday hardships by concentrating on something other than their miserable "just existing life"...
And now... along comes HD TV... slowly but surely making the TVs that aren't brand new and aren't more expensive creep out of existence...and of course... they will charge more.
Sometimes it's hard for me to remember when Radio and Television were free (for the price of purchasing said television or radio..), ah, yes.. paid radio has also begun.. and before long there will be no more free radio either.
Don't get me wrong.. I like much of the technology that has come along... and yes, I know there's always a price to pay. I guess what I don't understand is why it has to cost so much. Why do the inventors and others of this technology have to become billionaires "overnight"? Shouldn't things be made so that even the lowest paid individual can afford it too?
I can remember learning that most people.. in the darkest of times like during war or in the time of depression.. would try to find a way to go to a movie, to escape for just a while.. to help keep their own sanity. Television became the new "theater" and although many times it's also condemed as not being good for kids to watch so much television, it's also a savior of sorts to many... the forgotten many.. the ones that always get left behind, many.
Sometimes I wonder where it will all end.
..and sometimes I'm glad I won't be around to see it.
...and that's only one of many things I don't understand, and probably never will.
'Till next time....
posted by DesLily | 7:52 AM
9 Comments:
Well... I do "get" your point... and I even agree with it! BUT... I'm not sure that NOT being able to afford cable is a BAD thing. Maybe if people can't HAVE television, they'll go outside and play, get together with friends and play cards or games, read a book, TALK... I worry about television these days too... but for waaaaaay different reasons that what you're citing. I worry that television consumes WAAAAAAAAAY too many hours of our (not JUST our children's) lives, and that people do NOT socialize as much as they once did. Instead of being out interacting with people in their own neighborhoods, who share the same lifestyle and relatively similar living conditions, and have similar interests - they sit on their butts watching make-believe life, fictional fabrication of people who have "perfect" lives and scripted "witty" conversations! I think THIS causes a LOT of depression! People wanting their own lives to "be like that". No... I really don't think television is a "good" thing. I think it started out a good thing. An "occasional" entertainment. But I think it has been abused on so many different levels that it is no longer a good thing at all.
I remember our first TV. We received two channels...KXII in Ardmore, Sherman, and Denison and KTEN in Ada. to change the channels,we used a pipe wrench to turn the pole that the antennae was on.
OOPs, my real identity is not at BloggerBogger.
Melli... alot you say I agree with.. I wasn't going for if tv is good for someone or not so much as our choices being taken from us.. and the cost. Many can't afford and sort of entertainment in their life except for television. But as for watching "too much of it" I do agree that most do and it is damaging in many ways.
swampwitch: I too remember our first tv and sitting there as a kid watching the channel number in a big circle waiting for the time the show would come on!
It bothers me that it is Congress that is mandating the conversion to all HD channels. They say there will be converters for regular TV's, but I am like you' it is just another ploy separate the classes yet again.
Hear! Hear! Deslily...my thoughts exactly. I choose not to go 'out' often (I can't afford to do so, anyway). I prefer to watch movies in the privacy of home, at my own 'speed', rather than sit cramped up in a movie theatre.
You speak of 'technology'...one would think with all the advance and 'know-how' in technology these days, television sets, even the 'new-beaut' ones would be cheaper. As for cable...I can't afford cable.
It is amazing all the technological advances we have now but I agree, it all costs too much...Cable gets more and more exoensive and I had to get it when it first arrived up here on the hill because my reception was so very bad...antenna's, rabbit ears and all---but, over the years it has become so outrageously expensive...Where will it all end? And I remember when Radio was our 'vest friend', before TV...and it was free...Now, as you said, we have Sirius and God knows what other "paid" radio there is...
One thing that is really crazy: PAID PROGRAMMING. I already pay for the cable and then they have Paid Programming which is another term for Long Commercials....Now that is nuts!
I remember regular tv. I didn't mind it. Now I have cable but don't really watch it that much. Mostly I have cable for the internet. Dial up is so slow. I'm spoiled I guess lol. I do agree however that it should be less expensive than it is. More affordable so that more can be able to get it and reap the benefits of it. Part of it though as I see it is that usually only one company will serve and area therefore you are unable to use anyone else if you aren't happy with it. So much for competition.
Jeff: so true. David called the cable company and sent "yet another box" to be connected to his television..the cost is low but still everything adds up!
Lee: around here no cable means no television. unfortunately.
Naomi: LOL.. yes I love their "paid programing".. like we aren't paying through the nose already!!!
Mike: ah yes.. so right you are! Where is the "competition?"
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