Don’t watch TV for over 30 years and then have your eye catch an ad you didn’t want to see, but there it was. DirecTV embedded itself in part of my scroll through Reddit this morning, and while I’ll move to block the advertiser after seeing an ad too many times or one that is garish, the DirecTV ad I had not seen much up to this point and it isn’t distracting due to grotesque aesthetic, yet. So I paused and looked at what they were trying to convey, which triggered a bit of shock.
The advert was luring me with a 2-year special price lock-in for only $64.99 monthly, plus some fine print. My calculating brain was aghast at what it figured out quickly, but I had to know more. I see that the price does not include taxes and fees. The receiver will cost an additional $15 a month, and tax will add at least $6.40 per month, bringing the monthly cost to only $86, but wait, there’s more. This turns out to be over $1000 a year, and I’m certain that this price doesn’t include ad blocking. Then there are pay-per-view movies, regional sports fees, and premium/foreign content channels if you happen to indulge in those. And then you have to figure in AppleTV, Hulu, or Netflix with their fees should the consumer be so inclined.
As I write this stuff, I start thinking that this is not the first time I’ve lamented the cost of entertainment in the home, but maybe the part that really grinds up against my sense of value is that even after paying these exorbitant costs of membership, the consumer is still burdened with having to watch countless insipid ads that I want to believe harms the mental health of viewers.
Throw in a TV or two over the course of 10 years, and this means that Americans are paying roughly $12,000 per decade to be bombarded with stupidity while they allow the entertainment industry to whittle away at their free time under the pretense of alleviating boredom and loneliness and all of a sudden this feels like an aggressive act of emotional/intellectual robbery against the vulnerable general public or maybe it’s something akin to connecting a toxic sewage pipe to their minds which robs these people of dreams and intelligence.
By the way, if I have written more or less the same thing or the theme is worn, just try to think of this post as a rerun.