I’m a Redskins fan. My best friend is a Ravens fan. We’re both home brewers, so one Sunday when the two teams were playing we wanted to brew beer on the back deck and watch the game.
When we were kids that would have been simple. You just moved a portable TV onto the deck.
But in the new and improved world of cable TV, I had to buy a long cable to connect the thing.
Tonight, the Redskins are playing the Packers on Thursday Night Football. My wife and I will be busy for the first part of the game, so we want to record it. Back in the old days, that was easy. You ran the signal through a recording device and then to your TV, and you could record anything you wanted.
That scenario was very convenient for the viewer, but it made it too easy for people to make illegal copies of movies and such. For that and other reasons, modern broadcasting technology doesn’t allow you to do that. You need a DVR built in to the cable box to record shows on cable, but that doesn’t allow you to record something on Amazon Prime — which is where the game is being broadcast this evening.
Football used to be broadcast on free, over-the-air television. Now, it’s dispersed among various walled gardens. You have to subscribe to this, that, and the other service to watch the games. (Even in the days of free broadcasts you couldn’t watch all the games.)
Don’t get me wrong, modern TV technology is way better than it was when I was a kid. The resolution is amazing. You don’t have to fiddle with antennas or put the TV in just the right spot to get a signal. But why does it seem that every “improvement” comes with a built-in PITA penalty?
We have this funny mix of better service — with a catch.
- My refrigerator has a built-in water filter — but that means I have to keep buying water filters.
- My new car key is more secure, but getting a new key costs about $100.
- My appliances are more efficient, but all the gadgetry makes repairs more expensive.
- My streaming music service has (almost) everything I could want, but I don’t own any of the music. I have to maintain the subscription to listen.
People like to say, “don’t sell razors, sell razor blades,” by which they mean that the money is in continuing, on-going service. That’s true, but it creates an incentive to design products with a subscription component — whether or not that improves the experience for the consumer.
It’s good business, but it’s creating subscription fatigue.
Technology is far better than it used to be — clearer pictures, smarter gadgets, more choices. But every improvement seems to come with a hidden toll. At some point you have to ask: if progress always comes with strings attached, who’s it really for?
We’re told that AI will make life so much better — with AI agents, and maybe even AI maids and butlers. Be sure of this: it will also be designed to get us caught in the inventor’s walled garden. They’re not investing billions in AI to give us stuff for free.
People don’t mind a subscription that serves their needs and makes sense, provided it’s a logical part of the service. People get annoyed when they feel they’re being tricked, or sucked into something — just so the seller can make more money.
I blame the NFL for this, but I totally understand why they do it. The fans who foot the bill for everything get the short end of the stick. The teams and the networks make more money, but the ticket prices never decrease; the beer, merch, and food at the stadiums only go up in price. It’s just one big money machine! Go Birds!
Right. And have you seen the beer prices? Ridiculous.
Totally with you on this Greg. My son and I are Yankee fans and trying to figure out where the games are being broadcast is always a challenge: YES Network/Gotham Sports, Fox Sports, ESPN, Apple TV and Amazon Prime. We are waiting for Animal Planet to have a turn at this point.
I am not a fan of government meddling in private businesses (as a rule), but since sports leagues are somewhat of a public/private partnership, it would be nice if politicians stood up for the their voters and made this all a little more consumer-friendly.
Publishing, like television, has embraced the “razor and blades” model: you may get cheap or free entry into the ecosystem (discounted e‑readers, free trial subscriptions), but ongoing access to the actual content becomes the recurring revenue stream.
The result is a trade‑off — extraordinary convenience and reach, but less ownership, higher long‑term cost, and the nagging sense that you’re renting culture instead of truly owning it.
This shift affects both readers and writers in publishing, and the dynamic closely mirrors the subscription‑driven “walled garden” issues in other industries.