Newspaper and print magazines are all slowly but surely making the transition to online subscriptions. Why? Now people have the convenience of tablets, laptops and personal computers.

Another convenient feature of laptops and tablets is watching TV online, like with CenturyLink deals. Millions have already cut the cable cord in favor of online streaming services. So what are the pros and cons of switching from a TV subscription to an online alternative?

Pro: It’s free. It’s getting easier and easier to find an online TV service that is totally free. The only price you pay is to watch advertisement spots.

Con: The selection. Even though an online streaming service might be inexpensive, your selection of shows and movies suffers. A TV subscription, like a satellite TV service, has hundreds of channels at the ready, including premium channels for sports, movies and music. On top of that, live events, like award shows and games, aren’t available to view when they air.

Pro: Mobility. With an Internet-based TV service, watching TV is limited to your home. If you choose instead to use the Internet, you can watch TV anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection. Even though some services, like HBO GO®, are completely mobile, the entire TV subscription probably isn’t.

Con: Reliability. Everyone has experienced an Internet connection that isn’t living up to its fast reputation. A TV subscription offers a more reliable connection than a Wi-Fi or Internet connection.

If online streaming services, like Netflix, continue to expand their databases and if wireless networks continue to improve in speed and dependability, the more TV subscription cancellations you’ll see in the coming years.

When the first online video platforms like YouTube first became popular, internet service providers faced an uphill battle to maintain anything like a reasonable connection speed for most of their customers. Online video is extremely data intensive, and it can slow down the connection of entire streets, or at least it could before the latest generation of super fast broadband arrived.

Unfortunately, YouTube was just the start of it. Almost every major television channel has an online player allowing people to catch up with what they’ve missed, or even watch television live. When you then throw in online video games and film streaming, all of a sudden the internet is struggling with volumes of data that would stun a team of oxen.

So, a number of the internet providers in the UK complained, and pointed out that these free services were actually costing them stacks of money and that the video platforms should contribute to the upkeep of the network. To no one’s surprise, these complaints didn’t get particularly far, and customers continued to complain that their internet wasn’t fast enough.

This hastened the roll out of fibre optic broadband, which has the potential to massively increase the speed at which the internet functions, however, the problem remains, the websites who are using up the majority of the bandwidth aren’t footing the bill, and quite a few of them aren’t making a great amount of money out of the internet anyway.

In this regards, Sky may just have cracked it, or at least for some television companies. Whereas other news sources haven’t had a huge success with charging for content. The Sky player – for which you have to pay a small monthly fee roughly akin to the top up charge for Sky multi room – has been successful, and continues to attract new customers. For the small fee, you can watch any Sky programme, and Sky Sports, on your laptop any time you like. In return, Sky have the extra finance to maintain their internet services.

Of course, you do need high speed internet to make the system work, but then Sky broadband customers get discounts when it comes to the Sky player, so that’s not really a problem either.

Whether other platforms, for which people aren’t used to paying in the way that they are for satellite TV, can convince customers to part with their cash to use their internet services remains to be seen, for moment it seems like Sky have got a march on the field.

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YouTube is not loading at the moment – I discovered it while listening to Leo Laporte on TWiT Live – wondering that the problem is – tunes clutter?

Well he picked us up like a dirty whore, took us for a ride, had his fun, soon after shoved us out of his car and left us in the gutter. Bastard! See here.

Orginal post by Steve

See here. Gist is, in a recession we’ll get hit hard considering we depend so much on consumer spending. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I think whether the economy gets really really poor it’s going to help us considering society will need to obtain gorgeous electronics in order to distract themselves from the misery of their lives. Hang in there, citizens.

Orginal post by Steve

Look, to all of you who are sick of the politics, I apologize, but that one was too good to pass up. Okay? And yes, Brian, I’m talking directly to you. You friggin whiner. For those who care, the original version of his terrifying photo can be found here. Much love to Mike for the tip.

Orginal post by Steve

This guy works at Microsoft but doesn’t mind bashing the hell out of them. He’s so fed up with Borgware that he’s switched to a Mac. Money quote:

“I know I’m becoming a snotty Mac user, but after months of having made the transition, I understand why we go snotty. Apple doesn’t churn out perfection, but they’re hyperaware of the user experience. Things occasionally crash, and Safari has a memory leak that, although a rare event, can shut down the app. But overall, these are small things. They stand out considering they’re the exceptions. Most of the day things simply work. As I’ve said before, even Windows runs far better as an app under OS X than it does on its own. I don’t know why that is, but there you go.

“It’s things like that that drained me of the motivation to continue promoting Microsoft products. The further in I got, the worse my opinion of the company was. The clutter you experience on the user end is the product of clutter internally. whether it weren’t cruel and a danger to the economy, I’d propose that Microsoft fire about 40,000 humans.”

Orginal post by Steve