The IP Broadband revolution continues

Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi Channel is pretty much my only reason for having cable service. Sure, I occasionally watch OnDemand movies, but I really hate watching anything good in low-res pan-and-scan. Considering that I’m dumping over $120 each month on some really unsatisfactory services, I’m considering downgrading.

Apple’s iTunes has made Battlestar Galactica episodes available less than 24 hours after the initial broadcasts. Each episode costs about two bucks and can be watched over and over again without commercial interruption. The resolution is not quite ideal, but it looks pretty good on screen from across the room. Even in a month with five new episodes, that’s ten bucks.

I’m not quite certain I’m going to abandon broadcast TV entirely, but I’m at least going to check and see how much I can strip down the cable service and compare those prices with going back to DSL. Going back to DSL would mean paying for plain-old-telephone service again, so that probably would not be the most cost-effective option. Still, it’s time I looked into not paying exorbitant amounts of money for entertainment that I don’t watch and don’t enjoy. Even just getting rid of a premium channel would pay for two movie tickets or seven DVD rentals each month. If they’ll let me downgrade to basic and still keep broadband, that’s six movie tickets or twenty-one DVD rentals in a month.

It’s not even like the money is a huge deal for me, except that in our society we vote with our dollars. I think I’d rather support the models that let me choose what I want and pay only for those things than the bulk 500 channels of crap. In so many ways in this country we’ve chosen to follow economies of scale, that our standard of living has increased only through industrialization and the development of technologies. In terms of our ability to buy other people’s time and effort, even the very well off are at a disadvantage compared to our parents, grandparents, and ancestors dating back to the Black Plague.

Paying only for what I want then becomes a political statement. Spooky, isn’t it?